Janice Mirikitani

Masami Usui (Doshisha University)

Ed. by Emory Elliott, University of California, Riverside
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège)

Dates

Born 5 Feb 1941
Died 29 Jul 2021
Activity 1971-2021

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Cultural Identities

Activities

Primary

Choreographer
Essayist
Poet
Revolutionary, Activist

Resources

Mirikitani's Works

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Janice Mirikitani was born in Stockton, California in 1941 as a

sansei

or third-generation Japanese American. During World War II she was interned with her family in Rohwer, Arkansas. After her family was released from the concentration camp, they moved to Chicago in order to avoid racism on the West Coast. Soon after that, however, her parents divorced and Mirikitani, at age five, was confronted with solitude and poverty in a single-parent household. The more crucial trauma was caused by her mother's remarriage and their new country life in Petaluma, California, where she was a victim of sexual abuse by her stepfather from five to sixteen years old. Ironically, she describes the simple and poor life of her early years as the nourishing ground for a sense of “pride, respect for…

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855 words

Citation: Usui, Masami. "Janice Mirikitani". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 March 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3130, accessed 22 November 2024.]