Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Wakako Yamauchi Interview
Narrator: Wakako Yamauchi
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Torrance, California
Date: July 8, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-ywakako-01-0021

WY: Because to me, that was the best story I'd ever written. And then -- oh, that's what it did to me. I tried to sell it to white magazines and I couldn't do it, and then I said, "No, I'm not going to worry about white magazines, I'm going to write what I know, what I love, what I know." And validate other people's lives as well as mine, you know, just like Hisaye's writings had made me feel right about myself. So that's what I did. And then I thought to myself, "You can't write anything trying to please somebody else." Because if you do, you (always offend someone). You can only write what you truly feel inside, and forget everybody else, because there are too many people you have to please.

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