Ask The Puma Research Guides: The Night Before Goodbye

The Night Before Goodbye

Mitsuye (May) Yamada is a Japanese-American author.  She and her family, being of Japanese ancestry, were sent to an internment camp in the U. S. during World War II.  Yamada’s anthology, Camp Notes, and Other Poems (1976) describes this miserable experience.  One poem from this anthology is called “The Night Before Goodbye.”  This poem concerns how a mother is mending her daughter’s clothing in an internment camp.  The family activities thus are threatened by such unjust imprisonment.  (The following entries describe this poem and other writings by Yamada concerning the internment camps.) 

LINCCWeb online catalog – Search Term

• Yamada, Mitsuye  (Books – Containing the Words – East Campus)

Call Numbers for Browsing the Shelves

• D769.8 .A6  L37 2001
• PS508 .A8 M35 1997

Circulating Books and Materials – A Selected List

• Harth, Erica (Ed.). Last Witnesses: Reflections on the Wartime Internment of Japanese Americans.  2001.

                  Call Number:  D769.8 .A6 L37 2001     *(See pages 35-45.)

•  Kim, Elaine (Ed.).  Making More Waves: New Writing by Asian American Women.  1997.  

                  Call Number:  PS508 .A8 M35 1997     *(See page 89.)

Reference Materials

• American Ethnic Writers (Revised Ed.). – Call Number:  REF PS153 .M56 A414 2009

o Volume 3, pages 1183-1185

• Critical Survey of Poetry (4^th Ed.): American Poets. – Call Number:  REF PN1021 .C7 2011

o Volume 4, page 2246, and pages 2244-2248

• Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature. – Call Number:  REF PS153 .A84 O37 2007

o Pages 326-327

• Poetry Criticism. – Call Number:  REF PN1010 .P6

o Volume 44, pages 330-334, 343, 347

Research Databases

To access Valencia’s research databases, open your Atlas account, select ‘Search the Library’, then select ‘Databases A-Z’.

•  Literature Resources from Gale     *( Use  Name of Work – Night Before Goodbye   and   Person By or About – Yamada, Mitsuye – Full Text.   The article that appears, by Susan Schweik, will include “The Night Before Goodbye” poem itself and commentary on it.)  
• JSTOR     *(On the search bar, type in Night Before Goodbye and Yamada.  The PDF article by Anita Patterson will appear.  Click on PDF.   “The Night Before Goodbye” poem  itself and commentary on it is included in this article.)
• Poetry & Short Story Reference Center (EBSCO) 

This Research Guide is designed to help users find information on a particular topic within the Valencia College East Campus Library.  This is by no means a comprehensive list of resources and other resources may be available on this topic.  Please check the LINCCWeb, Valencia East’s online catalog, to verify the availability of circulating books within the library.  Feel free to ask a librarian for help if you need further assistance.

Valencia College East Campus Library

Last Revised November 21, 2021