Yoshiko Uchida was born on November 24, 1921, in Alameda, California, and grew up in Berkeley. Her father, Dwight Takashi Uchida, was a businessman who worked in San Francisco; he and his wife, Iku, enjoyed entertaining and often played host to young Japanese visiting the area. Yoshiko was a creative child who liked to draw and, by age ten, had begun writing short stories. She often traveled during the summers, and visited Japan when she was about twelve years old.

In 1942 Uchida graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor's degree in English, philosophy, and history. She received her diploma through the mail in a cardboard roll because she and others of Japanes e ancestry who lived on America's West Coast were taken from their homes and sent to inland camps after war with Japan broke out. Uchida was evacuated first to the Tanforan...