For a long time, Yoshiko Uchida was the only author who focused on the Japanese-American experience. She was a prolific writer of mostly juvenile works who won many awards.

Uchida was born in 1921 in Alameda, California, the daughter of Japanese immigrants. She and her sister, Keiko, lived relatively comfortable lives because their father was one of the few Japanese immigrants who held a secure job. Uchida’s early life included writing, which she began at the age of ten. After graduating from high school at the age of sixteen, Uchida attended the University of California at Berkeley. She was in college when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. The internment that Uchida writes about in her novel Picture Bride is based on personal experience, as she and her family were interned for three years in these prison camps, first in California at the Tanforan Racetrack...