Tamiko Nimura

Tamiko Nimura is an Asian American writer living in Tacoma, Washington. Her training in literature and American ethnic studies (MA, PhD, University of Washington) prepared her to research, document, and tell the stories of people of color. She has been writing for Discover Nikkei since 2008.

Tamiko just published her first book, Rosa Franklin: A Life in Health Care, Public Service, and Social Justice (Washington State Legislature Oral History Program, 2020). Her second book is a co-written graphic novel, titled We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration (Chin Music Press/Wing Luke Asian Museum). She is working on a memoir called PILGRIMAGE.

Updated November 2020

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Love and Reckoning: A Meditation On Family Photos

In my childhood home in Roseville, California, we had a room we called “the den.” It was not the formal living room, where we had two couches, a fireplace, and a glass-topped coffee table. “The den” was a place for watching TV and listening to records from my dad’s impressive record collection; he’d had a tansu built specifically for that collection, with record-size compartments painted black inside and room for speakers at each end. Every day, I would pass by a framed oval portrait of my Issei grandparents that hung on a wall in the den. Now that I think …

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Writing on the Wall—Text for Resisters: A Legacy of Movement from the Japanese American Incarceration

It was a warm summer day in August 2022, but I could feel my feet and hands growing colder, a scratch in my throat developing. I was sitting at my youngest daughter’s desk while she was trying to sleep. My husband and oldest daughter had contracted COVID-19 and were isolating in our basement. Some sunlight was reaching into my daughter’s bedroom over my left shoulder while I sat at her white laminate IKEA desk. I could feel myself almost getting sick with an infection of some kind, but it never developed into a full illness. I think I stopped just in time. But I knew I was deep in…

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Sansei Granddaughters’ Journey Exhibit at Tanforan Detention Center Site

In 2018, five Sansei women artists traveled to Manzanar’s annual pilgrimage in order to honor their family histories of wartime incarceration. Each of them had worked with this history in some form in their wide-ranging art careers, but this journey was special. In order to chronicle their experiences, they created a documentary, Sansei Granddaughters’ Journey. Now the five artists (Ellen Bepp, Shari Arai DeBoer, Reiko Fujii, Kathy Fujii-Oka, and NaOmi Judy Shintani) are bringing their art, their documentary, and their expertise to another site of Japanese American wartime…

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Karen Maeda Allman's Life in Punk Rock - Part 3

Read Part 2 >> LIFE AFTER PUNK ROCK Tamiko Nimura (TN): So well this is a good chance, I think, to ask about the groups that have come along later like Sleater-Kinney, like Bikini Kill, like the Linda Lindas….I just wanted to know your take on them and just hear how you must feel to see them on the rise. Karen Maeda Allman (KMA): I thought it was really exciting and anyway I guess I should've known it's inevitable…But I guess nothing’s inevitable, but I just loved it. I loved Bikini Kill, I loved things that Kathleen Hanna did after that, I thought she was re…

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Karen Maeda Allman's Life in Punk Rock - Part 2

Read Part 1 >> LIFE IN PUNK Tamiko Nimura (TN): It's so fantastic to hear about this I just remember reading [and] doing a little bit of googling on you and of course you know all your bookselling stuff comes up, but it was like yeah there is this picture of you and your “armor” at the Smithsonian, and I thought, “wait a second.” Can you tell me about this, about your armor, and what it was like to put it on? Karen Maeda Allman (KMA): Well you know, Madonna wore a lot of bracelets and stuff. And she was very influenced by punks in LA fashion-wise, just as…

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