Catherine Irwin is the author of Twice Orphaned: Voices from the Children’s Village Of Manzanar. She is an assistant professor of writing in the Modern Languages Department at the University of La Verne. She received her B.A. in English from U.C. Berkeley and her Ph.D. in English from the University of Southern California. A native of Los Angeles, she has taught courses in Asian American Studies, American Cultures, and writing at various universities in Southern California. She is currently working on an oral history of Mitsuye Yamada, an Orange County poet and activist.