Janice Mirikitani

{{Infobox person

| name = Janice Mirikitani

| image = MIRIKITANI1979SF.jpg

| caption = Mirikitani in 1977

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1941|02|05}}

| birth_place = Stockton, CaliforniaU.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2021|07|29|1941|02|05}}

| death_place = San Francisco, California, U.S.

| education = San Francisco State University

| alma_mater = University of California, Los Angeles

| occupation = Poet, activist, community organizer

| spouse = {{marriage|Cecil Williams|1982}}

| children = 1

}}

Janice Mirikitani (February 5, 1941 – July 29, 2021) was an American poet and activist who resided in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of her adult life. She managed the Glide Memorial Church with her husband, Cecil Williams. She was noted for serving as San Francisco's poet laureate from 2000 until 2002.

Early life

Mirikitani was born in Stockton, California, on February 5, 1941, and was Sansei (third-generation Japanese American).{{cite news|title=Glide Church Co-Founder, Poet and San Francisco Activist Janice Mirikitani Dies at Age 80|url=https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/07/29/glide-church-co-founder-poet-san-francisco-activist-janice-mirikitani-dies/|date=July 29, 2021|access-date=July 30, 2021|publisher=KPIX-TV}} Her parents, Shigemi and Ted Mirikitani, worked as chicken farmers in San Joaquin County.{{cite news|title=Janice Mirikitani, poet, San Francisco church leader, dies|url=https://apnews.com/article/san-francisco-gay-rights-cecil-williams-16578ad0198009f9b142a9e20e488d6c|date=July 30, 2021|access-date=July 30, 2021|work=Associated Press}} In 1942, during the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, she and her family were sent to the Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas. Following the war, the family moved to Chicago.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AwEtBiiphOoC&pg=PA233|title=Asian-American Poets: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2002|editor-last1=Huang|editor-first1=Guiyou|editor-last2=Nelson|editor-first2=Emmanuel Sampath|pages=233–234|isbn=9780313318092}}

After her parents divorced, Janice was brought back to a chicken farm at Petaluma, California, with her mother, where they would be near the remainder of their family. During the time that followed, Janice became the victim of sexual molestation by her step-father up to the age of sixteen,[http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Janice_Mirikitani/ Janice Mirikitani], Densho Encyclopedia. and was saved from suicide only by the love and care of her grandmother. She would later speak of the pain of her incestuous abuse through her poetry.

Mirikitani attended UCLA, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree. During this time, she struggled with her ethnic identity, which she would later portray through her poetry. After gaining her teaching credentials, she taught in the Contra Costa School District for a year. She worked at Glide Memorial Church in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco as an administrative assistant. She then entered graduate school for creative writing at San Francisco State University, but later discontinued her studies.

Political activities

File:Janice Mirikitani.jpg at a protest in San Francisco, California, in 1977. City supervisor Dorothy von Beroldingen is at right.|alt=Mirikitani next to Cecil Williams at a protest in San Francisco, California in 1977. City supervisor Dorothy von Beroldingen is at right.|left]]

File:Janice Mirikitani joins the protest in front of the International Hotel in San Francisco, January 1977.jpg

File:Janice Mirikitani GLIDE Church founder, 1977.jpg

After participating in the Asian American Political Alliance, she joined Third World Communications. She later co-founded and edited Aion – regarded as the first Asian American literary magazine – which published just two issues in 1970 before folding.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XsIe5x2I3YMC&pg=PA65|title=The Asian American Movement|publisher=VNR AG|date=June 27, 1993|last=Wei|first=William|page=65|isbn=9781566390491}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XsIe5x2I3YMC&pg=PA65|title=Diasporic Poetics: Asian Writing in the United States, Canada, and Australia|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=July 8, 2021|last=Yu|first=Timothy|page=65|isbn=9780198867654}} She edited two anthologies for Third World Communications: Third World Women (1972) and Time to Greez! Incantations from the Third World (1975). Mirikitani then became project director for Ayumi: A Japanese American Anthology (1980).

After two years of activism for Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in 1969 she became the program director. In 1982 Mirikitani married Cecil Williams, who was pastor of the church. That same year she was chosen as the president of the Glide Foundation, where she was responsible for fund raising and budget oversight. She was named the second poet laureate for the city of San Francisco in 2000, and she served in that role for two years. The California State Assembly named her "Woman of the Year" for the 17th Assembly District.

Personal life

Mirikitani had one child, daughter Tianne Miller from her first marriage.{{cite news|title=Freeing Verse – How the city's poet laureate found her voice and learned to speak out for the dispossessed|url=https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/FREEING-VERSE-How-the-city-s-poet-laureate-3237636.php|first=Sam|last=McManis|date=July 21, 2000|access-date=July 30, 2021|newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle}} One of her cousins was the painter Jimmy Mirikitani.{{cite news|title=Auction house cancels controversial sale of photos and craft works from Japanese internment camps|url=https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2015/04/15/auction-house-cancels-controversial-sale-of-photos-and-craft-works-from-japanese-internment-camps/|first=Joe|last=Rodriguez|date=April 15, 2015|access-date=July 30, 2021|newspaper=East Bay Times|location=Walnut Creek, California}}{{cite news|title=Japanese Americans' furor blocks internment-era artifact auction|url=https://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Japanese-Americans-furor-blocks-internment-era-6202805.php|first=Bob|last=Egelko|date=April 16, 2015|access-date=July 30, 2021|newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle}}

Mirikitani died on the morning of July 29, 2021, at the age of 80.{{cite news |last1=Hernández |first1=Lauren |last2=Knight |first2=Heather |date=July 29, 2021 |title=Janice Mirikitani, Glide co-founder, activist and S.F. poet laureate, dies at 80 |newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle |url=https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/Janice-Mirikitani-Glide-co-founder-activist-and-16350414.php |access-date=July 30, 2021}} The cause of death was cancer.{{Cite news |last=Sandomir |first=Richard |date=2021-08-13 |title=Janice Mirikitani, Poet and Crusader for People in Need, Dies at 80 |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/us/janice-mirikitani-dead.html |access-date=2022-03-09 |issn=0362-4331}}

Bibliography

{{Cite book |last=Mirikitani |first=Janice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tU-xAAAAIAAJ |title=Awake in the River |publisher=Isthmus Press |year=1978 |isbn=9780913386507}}{{cite news |title=Janice Mirikitani |publisher=Poetry Foundation |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/janice-mirikitani |access-date=July 30, 2021}}
{{Cite book |last=Mirikitani |first=Janice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FXOFAAAACAAJ |title=Ayumi: A Japanese American Anthology |publisher=Japanese American Anthology Committee |year=1980 |isbn=9780960322206}}
{{Cite book |last=Mirikitani |first=Janice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uQEgAQAAIAAJ |title=Shedding Silence |publisher=Celestial Arts |year=1987 |isbn=9780890874967}}
{{Cite book |last=Mirikitani |first=Janice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8U-xAAAAIAAJ |title=We, the Dangerous: New and Selected Poems |publisher=Celestial Arts |year=1995 |isbn=9780890877678}}
{{Cite book |last=Mirikitani |first=Janice |title=Love Works |publisher=City Lights Foundation Books |year=2001 |isbn=9781931404020 |series=City Lights Foundation Books, San Francisco Poet Laureates}}
{{Cite book |last=Mirikitani |first=Janice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6VgEEAAAQBAJ |title=Out of the Dust: New and Selected Poems |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |year=2014 |isbn=9780824847944 |series=Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies}}
{{Cite book |last=Williams |first=Cecil |title=Beyond the Possible: 50 Years of Creating Radical Change in a Community Called Glide |last2=Mirikitani |first2=Janice |publisher=Harper Collins |others=Dave Eggers (Forward) |year=2013 |isbn=9780062105059}}

References

{{reflist|refs=

{{cite book | first=Vickie | last=Nam | year=2001 | title=Yell-oh girls!: emerging voices explore culture, identity, and growing up Asian American | page=xxxiii | publisher=Harper Collins | isbn=0-06-095944-4 | url=https://archive.org/details/yellohgirlsemerg00namv }}

{{cite book | first=Emmanuel Sampath | last=Nelson | year=2005 | title=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature: I - M | page=1503 | volume=3 | publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group | isbn=0-313-33062-X }}

{{cite book | first=Brian | last=Niiya | year=1993 | title=Japanese American history: an A-to-Z reference from 1868 to the present | page=[https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00dias/page/234 234–235] | publisher=VNR AG | isbn=0-8160-2680-7 | url=https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00dias/page/234 }}

{{cite book | first=Deborah L. | last=Madsen | year=2005 | title=Asian American writers | page=227 | volume=312, A Bruccoli Clark Layman book | series=Dictionary of literary biography: Asian American writers | publisher=Thomson Gale| isbn=0-7876-8130-X }}

{{cite book | first=Tamiko | last=Nimura | year=2002 | title=Asian-American poets: a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook | pages=233–235 | editor=Emmanuel Sampath Nelson and Huang Guiyou | publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group | isbn=0-313-31809-3 }}}}