Violet Kazue de Cristoforo

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Violet Kazue de Cristoforo
Born(1917-09-03)September 3, 1917
Nīnole, Hawaii, U.S.
DiedOctober 3, 2007(2007-10-03) (aged 90)
Salinas, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)Poet, editor
Notable work"Poetic Reflections of the Tule Lake Internment Camp, 1944" and "May Sky: There Is Always Tomorrow; An Anthology of Japanese American Concentration Camp Kaiko Haiku"

Violet Kazue de Cristoforo (September 3, 1917 – October 3, 2007) was a

Tule Lake Internment Camp, 1944,[2] which was written nearly 50 years after her detention[1] and May Sky: There Is Always Tomorrow; An Anthology of Japanese American Concentration Camp Kaiko Haiku, for which she was the editor.[3]

She was a major advocate for redress for Japanese Americans who were held in internment camps during the war. The work of Cristoforo and other activists ultimately led the

United States government
to make reparations and issue an official apology to the 120,000 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II.

Early life

de Cristoforo was born Kazue Yamane in

high school in Fresno, she married her first husband, Shigeru Matsuda. The couple ran a Japanese bookstore and joined a haiku club in the area. By the start of World War II, de Cristoforo had established herself as a well-known poet in the kaiko style, a modernist, freestyle subgenre of haiku.[4]

World War II

About a month after the December 7, 1941

Fresno Assembly Center, one of fifteen temporary detention sites where Japanese Americans were held while construction on the more permanent and isolated War Relocation Authority camps was completed. There, she gave birth to her third child, in 100-degree heat and on a makeshift table made of orange crates in an "apartment" converted from a horse stall.[1][4] Soon after, the family was transported to the concentration camp at Jerome, Arkansas, where they remained until the infamous "loyalty questionnaire
" resulted in Matsuda's separation from de Cristoforo and their children.

The

Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California.[4]

Throughout her time in camp, de Cristoforo continued to write, publishing some of her haiku in camp newspapers and literary magazines.[4] Her time in camp left a lasting imprint on her writings. Much of the original haiku that were written during her years in the camps has been lost or destroyed, however, her surviving writings and later work reflected the desolation and despair that she felt during that period.[1]

Post World War II

de Cristoforo and her children were expatriated to

atomic bomb and its effects on Japanese civilians when she went to Hiroshima to find her mother. She later described the reunion in an interview, recalling that when she found her mother wandering in the hills outside the city, the severe burns the woman had suffered in the bombing made her "look like a monster."[5]

She spent several years in post-war Japan, during which time she met her second husband, Wilfred H. de Cristoforo, an Army officer with the occupation forces.[4] The couple moved back to the United States in 1956 and settled in Monterey, California.[5] In addition to her writing, de Cristoforo took a publishing job at the McGraw-Hill Companies, and over the years she published a total of six books and anthologies of poetry.[4] She played an active role in the redress movement of the 1970s and 1980s, and testified in one of the hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, whose recommendations ultimately led to the passage of the landmark Civil Liberties Act of 1988.[4] Her marriage to Wilfred lasted until his death in 1998.[1]

Honors

Violet Kazue de Cristoforo was honored in

Washington D.C. by the National Endowment for the Arts in September 2007, just before her death. The NEA awarded her a National Heritage Fellowship for cultural achievement for her writings.[5]
The National Heritage Fellowship Award is the highest award given in the United States to honor achievement in traditional and folk arts.

Death

Violet Kazue de Cristoforo died from complications from a stroke on October 3, 2007, at her home in Salinas, California.[4] She died just two weeks after receiving the National Heritage Fellowship Award. She was 90 years old.

Cristoforo was survived by two daughters, a son, and two grandchildren.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Violet de Cristoforo, known for haiku on Japanese-American internment camps in US, dies". International Herald Tribune. Associated Press. 2007-10-05. Archived from the original on 2019-12-11. Retrieved 2007-10-24.
  2. OCLC 25871203
    .
  3. OCLC 36180911
    .
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wakida, Patricia; Niiya, Brian. "Violet Kazue de Cristoforo". Densho Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-08-25.
  5. ^ a b c d e Woo, Elaine (October 9, 2007). "Violet de Cristoforo, 90; California Haiku Poet Sent to WWII Internment Camps". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 8, 2021.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Violet_Kazue_de_Cristoforo&oldid=1208882475"