Amy Uyematsu

Amy Uyematsu (October 18, 1947 – June 23, 2023) was a Japanese American poet who has written six highly acclaimed poetry collections.

Works

Prominent writer Naomi Hirahara called Uyematsu, "One of LA's finest poets." Her writing mainly focused on the discrimination she experienced as both an Asian-American and a woman. Much of her early work explored the origins of the yellow power movement, which was a campaign inspired by the Black Power movement that worked towards equal rights for Asian Americans. Uyematsu won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize for her first book, 30 Miles from J-Town, in 1992. She attended UCLA during the late 1960s and early 1970s, where she began writing poetry in response to anti-Asian racism in the U.S. that was largely caused by the ongoing Vietnam War. Uyematsu’s activism spurred her to help start up UCLA’s Asian American Studies Program immediately after her graduation. Her writing appeared in many anthologies and journals published internationally. Her essay from 1969, “The Emergence of Yellow Power in America,” has had a lasting impact on Asian-American studies across the country, through her criticism of social inequities: “Although the race situation in America is not strictly analogous to white colonialism and imperialism, the blacks and yellows have suffered similar consequences as Third World people at the hands of the American capitalist power.” Uyematsu was also an experienced educator and taught high school mathematics for over thirty years in Los Angeles.

Related pages

• List of poets from North America