Valerie Matsumoto Explained

Valerie J. Matsumoto is a historian specializing in Asian American history, women's history, and oral history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2017 she was named the George and Sakaye Aratani Endowed Chair on the Japanese American Incarceration, Redress, and Community.

Education and career

Matsumoto has a bachelor's degree from Arizona State University. She then moved to Stanford University where she received a master's degree.^[1] She earned her Ph.D. in U.S. History from Stanford University in 1985.^[2]

In 2017 she was appointed to the George and Sakaye Aratani Endowed Chair on the Japanese American Incarceration, Redress, and Community.^[2]

Selected publications

Densho calls Matusumoto "our community’s most dedicated chronicler of Japanese American women’s history."^[3]

Matsumoto published her first book, Farming the Home Place^[4] in 1993. City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920-1950^[5] was published in 2014. In addition, she co-edited with Blake Allmendinger the anthology Over the Edge: Remapping the American West^[6] that was published in 1999.

Honors and awards

Matsumoto has been recognized with the C. Doris and Toshio Hoshide Distinguished Teaching Prize in 2006 and the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007.

Notes and References

1. Web site: News AASC . 2023-03-20 . www.aasc.ucla.edu.
2. Web site: Valerie Matsumoto – UCLA Asian American Studies Department . 2023-03-20 . en-US.
3. Web site: March 21, 2023 . Japanese American Women's Lives in the Camps and Beyond . March 21, 2023 . Densho.org.
4. Reviews of Farming the Home Place
   • Chan . Sucheng . 1994 . Review of Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American Community in California, 1919-1982 . Pacific Historical Review . 63 . 4 . 602–603 . 10.2307/3639967 . 0030-8684.
   • Barron . Hal S. . 1997 . Matsumoto . Valerie J. . Rice and Jell-O . American Quarterly . 49 . 1 . 203–209 . 0003-0678.
   • Kessler . Lauren . 1995 . Review of Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American Community in California, 1919-1982. . The Journal of American History . 81 . 4 . 1790–1791 . 10.2307/2081802 . 0021-8723.
5. Reviews of City Girls
   • Wallis . Eileen V. . 2016 . Review of City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920–1950, MatsumotoValerie J. . Pacific Historical Review . 85 . 2 . 321–322 . 0030-8684.
   • News: Imai . Shiho . Fall 2016 . City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920-1950 . 9 . 513–515 . Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth ; Baltimore . 3 . Proquest.
6. Review of Over the Edge
   • Dorst . John . 2000 . Review of OVER THE EDGE: Remapping the American West . American Studies . 41 . 1 . 168–169 . 0026-3079.