Wendy Yoshimura
Encyclopedia
Wendy Masako Yoshimura is an American
still life
watercolor painter
better known for her involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army
. She was born in a World War II-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 Revolutionary Army in Berkeley, California.
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.
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. She lived under an alias in New Jersey
until 1974.
terrorist group Symbionese Liberation Army
(Bill Harris, Emily Harris
, with kidnapping victim, 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.
at 625 Morse Street by FBI Special Agent Tom Padden and San Francisco Police Department
Inspector Tim Casey. 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.
. She teaches water color painting at her studio and at a San Francisco community center. Her still-life watercolors are often displayed in the Bay Area.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
watercolor painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
better known for her involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army
Symbionese Liberation Army
The Symbionese Liberation Army was an American self-styled left-wing urban militant group active between 1973 and 1975 that considered itself a revolutionary vanguard army...
. She was born in a World War II-era California internment camp
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
, 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 Revolutionary Army in Berkeley, California.
Early life
Yoshimura was born at the Manzanar Internment CampManzanar
Manzanar is most widely known as the site of one of ten camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in California's Owens Valley between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, it is...
for Japanese Americans where her American-born parents were incarcerated. After the war the Yoshimura family moved to Etajima
Etajima
Etajima is an island in Hiroshima Bay located in southwestern Hiroshima Prefecture.From the city of Hiroshima the island is about 7km out at sea. The island is about 6km from the city of Kure. It is connected to Kure by two bridges....
, a small island off the coast of Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
, where her father worked for the Allied
Allies
In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them...
Occupation
Occupied Japan
At the end of World War II, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers, led by the United States with contributions also from Australia, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. This foreign presence marked the first time in its history that the island nation had been occupied by a foreign power...
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
California College of the Arts
California College of the Arts , founded in 1907, is known for its broad, interdisciplinary programs in art, design, architecture, and writing. It has two campuses, one in Oakland and one in San Francisco, California, USA...
) in 1969.
Revolutionary Army
Yoshimura became associated with the Revolutionary Army, a group founded by her then boyfriend, Willie Brandt, which has never been shown to have had more than five members. 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."They also found letters taking credit for planned future bombings targeting the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
campus including the Naval Architecture building, and notes describing a specific plan to kidnap or assassinate World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
President and former defense secretary Robert McNamara
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...
at his winter residence in Aspen, Colorado
Aspen, Colorado
The City of Aspen is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population was 5,804 in 2005...
. Brandt and two others were arrested in Berkeley on March 31,
1972 and subsequently convicted, but Yoshimura evaded a police dragnet and fled California. She lived under an alias in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
until 1974.
Symbionese Liberation Army
Also in 1974, the two surviving members of the BerkeleyBerkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
terrorist group Symbionese Liberation Army
Symbionese Liberation Army
The Symbionese Liberation Army was an American self-styled left-wing urban militant group active between 1973 and 1975 that considered itself a revolutionary vanguard army...
(Bill Harris, Emily Harris
Emily Harris (SLA)
Emily Harris was, along with her husband William Harris , a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army , a leftist United States group involved in bank robberies, kidnapping and murder. In the 1970s, she was convicted of kidnapping Patty Hearst...
, with kidnapping victim, Patty Hearst
Patty Hearst
Patricia Campbell Hearst , now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and convicted bank robber....
) relocated to rural Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
after six of their comrades died in a shootout with Los Angeles police
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
. 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
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
. 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 apartmentApartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
at 625 Morse Street by FBI Special Agent Tom Padden and San Francisco Police Department
San Francisco Police Department
The San Francisco Police Department, also known as the SFPD and San Francisco Department Of Police, is the police department of the City and County of San Francisco, California...
Inspector Tim Casey. 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
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
gave $150,000 dollars to aid her legal defense through the Wendy Yoshimura Fair Trial Committee.
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. One SLA member, Michael Bortin, had pleaded 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
Yoshimura is currently an artist residing in north Oakland, CaliforniaOakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
. She teaches water color painting at her studio and at a San Francisco community center. Her still-life watercolors are often displayed in the Bay Area.
Notable media
- American Woman is a fictionalization of Yoshimura's story by Susan ChoiSusan ChoiSusan Choi is an American novelist. Choi was born in South Bend, Indiana to a Korean father and the American daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. When she was nine years old, her parents divorced. She and her mother moved to Houston, Texas. Choi earned a B.A. in Literature from Yale University ...
that was a finalist for the Pulitzer PrizePulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
. - Wendy... Uh... What's Her Name is a documentary by Curtis Choy