Book Event – “Elaine Black Yoneda: A California Story”

Rachel Schreiber discusses her new book, “Elaine Black Yoneda: Jewish Immigration, Labor Activism, and Japanese American Exclusion and Incarceration” (Temple University Press, 2021). Elaine Yoneda, daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants to the US, spent eight months in a WWII concentration camp—not in Europe, but in California. She insisted on accompanying her Japanese American husband, Karl Yoneda and their son Tommy when they were required to go to Manzanar. Prior to WWII, Elaine had an important career in labor activism throughout the state of California, including being the only woman on the organizing committee of the 1934 General Strike in San Francisco, and extensive agricultural activism throughout the Central Valley and in Northern California. Hers is truly a California story.Exclusive rights have been optioned by New York based producer Tony Amatullo, for adaptation of Elaine Black Yoneda as a motion picture.
More about the speaker:
Rachel Schreiber is an artist and historian. She currently serves as Executive Dean of Parsons School of Design at The New School. Previously, she had been based in Oakland, California for twelve years, holding faculty and leadership positions at the California College of the Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute. As a historian, her focus is on women’s labor activism, and activism in visual and print culture. She is the author of three books, numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, and has exhibited her artwork internationally.

This program is sponsored by the California Historical Society, co-sponsored by the San Francisco State University Labor Archives and Research Center

Book Link: https://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000010482

For more info: California Historical Society

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