Yōko Matsuoka

Yoko Matsuoka ( 20 April 1916 – 7 December 1979) was a Japanese writer, literary agent, translator, and anti-war and women's rights activist. She was born and raised in Toyko to parents who were educators and who had been educated abroad. Although both of them were descended from samurai families, they raised their daughters as Christian. Matsuoka was educated in Japan and Korea before being sent to study in the United States in 1931, as a protest to the Asian Exclusion Act. She graduated from Shaker Heights High School in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1935 and earned a degree in political science from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania in 1939. During her schooling, she became interested in international relations and was active in organizations which promoted peace and friendship. In the interwar era, she was active in the Pan-Pacific Women's Association and attended several youth conferences aimed at developing international cooperation. On her way home to Japan when World War II began, she began to examine the criticism leveled at Japan's militaristic policies.