Biography
Wendy Yoshimura (born January 17, 1943, at the Manzanar incarceration camp, where her Japanese-American parents were imprisoned during World War II) became a cause célèbre for the Japanese-American and Asian-American movements. In 1972, police found a cache of weapons and explosives in a Berkeley, California garage she had rented, along with writings about planned bombings; after her co-defendant was arrested in March 1972, Yoshimura went underground, living under an alias and later among the remnants of the Symbionese Liberation Army.
She was arrested on September 18, 1975 in San Francisco, in the same operation that captured Patty Hearst. Tried on the 1972 Berkeley explosives and weapons charges, she was convicted in 1977 and sentenced to one-to-fifteen years. Japanese-American communities — many drawing a parallel to their own wartime incarceration — raised some $150,000 through the Wendy Yoshimura Fair Trial Committee. She was paroled in September 1980.
Born in the Manzanar Japanese-American internment camp during WWII to American-citizen parents. Studied art at California College of Arts and Crafts, drawn into radical politics through her relationship with Willie Brandt, founder of the Berkeley-based Revolutionary Army. After a March 1972 raid uncovered a Berkeley garage bomb-making operation, Yoshimura went underground and lived under aliases until her September 18, 1975 capture in San Francisco alongside Patty Hearst. Convicted in 1977 of weapons and explosives possession, she served roughly 13 months and was paroled August 25, 1980. Has worked as a still-life watercolor painter in the Bay Area since.
