Hisaye Yamamoto discovered the Catholic Worker, a Christian anarchist group founded by
Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. This led her to turn down, in 1953, a prestigious writing
fellowship from Stanford University to go live with her son, Paul, on a farm located in Staten
Island run by the Catholic Worker. She stayed there for two years before moving back to her
native California.
Although brief, this experience marked Yamamoto deeply and played an important role in
shaping her political and religious vision for the rest of her life. While scholars have recognized
the crucial influence the ideology of the Catholic Worker had on Yamamoto, they have not
discussed in detail the time she spent living there. They have also completely overlooked her
personal relationship with Dorothy Day, which lasted until the latter died in 1980.
Drawing on the articles Yamamoto wrote for the newspaper the Catholic Worker, some of her
short stories, and unpublished correspondence with Day; this presentation will argue that
scholars cannot truly understand her work without closely looking at her life with the Catholic
Worker. Indeed, her stories “Epiphalium” and “Kichi Harada” sprung directly from her
experience at the Catholic Worker. Furthermore, we will discuss how the antiracist and pacifist
ideology of the Catholic Worker attracted Yamamoto and how it was reflected in her writing.