Wendy Yoshimura

Infobox revolution biography
name = Wendy Yoshimura
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1943|1|17
placeofbirth = California
dateofdeath =
placeofdeath =


caption =
alternate name =
movement = Symbionese Liberation Army
organizations =

Wendy Masako Yoshimura (born January 17, 1943) is an American still life watercolor painter better known for her involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army. She was born in a WWII-era California internment camp, and raised in Japan and the Central Valley. She encountered and became involved in radical politics during her last year of art college as a result of meeting Willie Brandt, founder of the so-called Revolutionary Army in Berkeley, California.

Early life

Yoshimura was born at the Manzanar Internment Camp for Japanese Americans where her American-born parents were incarcerated. After the war the Yoshimura family moved to Etajima, a small island off the coast of Hiroshima, where her father worked for the Allied Occupation forces. The family returned to the US when Yoshimura was 13 years old. Because she did not speak English, Yoshimura was initially placed in the second grade in the Fresno school system. She graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) in 1969. [http://www.askart.com/askart/y/wendy_yoshimura/wendy_yoshimura.aspx "Wendy Yoshimura (1943 - )"] . AskArt.com.]

Revolutionary Army

Yoshimura became associated with the Revolutionary Army, a group founded by her boyfriend, Willie Brandt, which has never been shown to have had more than five members.Fact|date=May 2008 Brandt appended the title to public statements claiming responsibility for violent actions intended to express opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1972, police discovered a weapons and explosives cache in a Berkeley garage she had rented and described it as a "massive bomb factory."cite web
title = Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
publisher = Public Broadcasting Service
url = http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/guerrilla/timeline/index.html ] .They also found letters taking credit for planned future bombings targeting the University of California, Berkeley campus including the Naval Architecture building, and notes describing a specific plan to kidnap or assassinate World Bank President and former defense secretary Robert McNamara at his winter residence in Aspen, Colorado. Brandt and two others were arrested in Berkeley on March 31,
1972 and subsequently convicted, but Yoshimura evaded a police dragnet and fled California. [http://www.courttv.com/trials/soliah/docs/street.pdf "'70s Radical Bombing Case" Court motion] . CourtTV.com.] She lived under an alias in New Jersey until 1974.

ymbionese Liberation Army

Also in 1974, the three surviving members of the Berkeley terrorist group Symbionese Liberation Army (Bill Harris, Emily Harris, and Patty Hearst) relocated to rural Pennsylvania after six of their comrades died in a shootout with Los Angeles police. Sports writer and political activist Jack Scott, who had helped the high-profile fugitives make their way east, arranged for Yoshimura to join them and handle shopping and other public transactions.

After two months with the group, Yoshimura left and returned alone to California, taking up residence in San Francisco. Hearst and the Harrises found their own way back into the state and regrouped in Sacramento, California. When the FBI found Yoshimura's thumbprint in the SLA's rural hideout, newspaper headlines tied her to the group and she fled San Francisco and reunited with them in Sacramento.

In Sacramento, with associates from the San Francisco Bay Area, some of the fugitives planned and carried out a bank robbery in which a customer was shot and killed. Hearst's account in "Every Secret Thing" states that she and Yoshimura opposed the action and were therefore assigned to "switch cars" far from the scene. After the robbery the group abandoned Sacramento and fled separately to San Francisco.

Arrest and conviction

On September 18, 1975, Yoshimura was arrested with Hearst in a second-floor apartment at 625 Morse Street by FBI Special Agent Tom Padden and San Francisco Police Department Inspector Tim Casey. [Yoshimura's arrest at coord|37.720423|N|122.440653|W|name=625 Morse Street, San Francisco, CA|type:landmark] cite web |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,913456-6,00.html |title=Patti's Twisted Journey |publisher=Time |date=September 29, 1975] Padden and Casey, failing to read Hearst and Yoshimura their Miranda rights, did not obtain a warrant until twenty-six hours later; thus weapons evidence including a handgun in Yoshimura's purse and a shotgun in the bedroom were suppressed. During her trial, Japanese Americans who sympathized with her family's experience during World War II gave $150,000 dollars to aid her legal defense through the Wendy Yoshimura Fair Trial Committee.cite book |title=Anyone's Daughter |author=Alexander, Shana |publisher=Viking Press |page=101 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=gUTPAAAACAAJ |isbn=0670129496]

Grand jury investigation

In 1991 Yoshimura was granted limited immunity to testify during a grand jury investigation into the fatal 1975 bank robbery, which killed Myrna Opsahl, 42-year-old mother of four.cite web |title=Symbionese Liberation Army members, then and now |publisher=Associated Press |date=May 11, 2004 |url=http://www.religionnewsblog.com/7233-.html] One SLA member, Michael Bortin, had plead guilty for the robbery itself. No indictments resulted at the time. In 2002 five former SLA members and associates were arrested and four of them pled guilty to charges related to that crime.

Present day and watercolors

Today, Yoshimura lives in north Oakland, California and teaches art at a local community center. [ [http://www.jcccnc.org/programs/arts.htm "Cultural Arts & Crafts Programs"] . JCCCNC.org.] Her still-life watercolors depicting fruits, vegetables, flowers and seashells are often displayed in the Bay Area. [ [http://www.missionarts.org/0506/0506.pdf 0506.indd "Mission Arts Monthly"] . June and July 2005.] Spicer, Jakki K. [http://www.eastbayexpress.com/artsculture/in_the_galleries_june_13_20__2007/Content?oid=440986 "In the Galleries June 13-20, 2007"] . EastBayExpress.com. June 13, 2007.] [cite news |title=Art Listings |author=Han, Sarah |publisher=San Francisco Bay Guardian |url=http://www.sfbg.com/39/15/x_list_art.html |accessdate=2008-02-15] Her open studio in December 2007 was noted by Hokubei News, a Bay Area publication for Japanese-Americans. [ [http://www.hokubeinews.com/articles/article/5289571/91902.htm "New Works by Yoshimura on Display in Open Studio".] Hokubeinews.com.] According to Yoshimura, she paints to capture single moments of intense beauty that inspire her. Of watercolors, she says, "I love its transparency, fluidity, and quiet wildness, always flowing just at the edge of the artist’s control." [ [http://www.buccis.com/art/yoshimura.html Buccis: Art at Bucci's: Wendy Yoshimura".] Buccis.com.] [ [http://www.hokubeinews.com/articles/article/4530478/79584.htm "The Artz".] Hokubeinews.com. May 2007.] Asian Week calls her still-life watercolors "colorful and brilliant." [ [http://www.asianweek.com/030499/calendar_national.html "Artist Yoshimura to Display New Watercolors"] . Asian Week.com.] East Bay Express calls her prints "shimmeringly rendered." Her work is currently showing at [http://www.rubysgarden.com Ruby's Garden Kidwear & Flower Shop, Oakland CA] in Wendy's very own Temescal neighborhood of North Oakland, thru December 08.

Notable media

*"American Woman" is a fictionalization of Yoshimura's story by Susan Choi that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
*"Wendy... Uh... What's Her Name" is a documentary by Curtis Choy

References

External links

* [http://wendyyoshimura.com wendyyoshimura.com]