Sharon Yamato
@Sharony360Sharon Yamato is a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles who has produced and directed several films on the Japanese American incarceration, including Out of Infamy, A Flicker in Eternity, and Moving Walls, for which she wrote a book by the same title. She served as creative consultant on A Life in Pieces, an award-winning virtual reality project, and is currently working on a documentary on attorney and civil rights leader Wayne M. Collins. As a writer, she co-wrote Jive Bomber: A Sentimental Journey, a memoir of Japanese American National Museum founder Bruce T. Kaji, has written articles for the Los Angeles Times, and is currently a columnist for The Rafu Shimpo. She has served as a consultant for the Japanese American National Museum, Go For Broke National Education Center, and has conducted oral history interviews for Densho in Seattle. She graduated from UCLA with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English.
Updated March 2023
Stories from This Author
Ireichō, Kintsugi, and the Transformation of Karma: A Conversation with Project Founder Duncan Ryuken Williams
Nov. 27, 2022 • Sharon Yamato
To craft into a sacred book listing the names of 125,284 people of Japanese ancestry incarcerated at 75 World War II detention sites, it took inspired thought and meticulous research from its brilliant creative team. Led by Buddhist priest Duncan Ryuken Williams of the University of Southern California Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture, and book publisher Sunyoung Lee of Kaya Press, it was a book meant to be a living monument with Japanese spiritual elements among its essential …
Moving Farewell to Beloved Heart Mountain Farmer
May 5, 2022 • Sharon Yamato
As far as the eye could see along Road 90 where it meets Lane 9, stretching along the vast dusty farmland of Powell, Wyoming, and extending for miles in the shadow of Heart Mountain, 60 tractors paraded by the homestead farm that Tak Ogawa tended and nurtured for more than 70 years. The procession of farmers came to pay tribute to the man they knew as a pioneer, neighbor, co-worker, helper and friend. On March 31, Ogawa passed away quietly …
Behind the Art of Miné Okubo
Aug. 26, 2021 • Sharon Yamato
How appropriate that on the 75th Anniversary of Miné Okubo’s pioneering graphic memoir, Citizen 13660, hailed for its groundbreaking account of the WWII incarceration by a Nisei held in camp, the Japanese American National Museum would present an exhibition drawn from its own impressive collection of Okubo masterworks. When the Museum was developing its reputation as the repository for notable Japanese American art more than twenty years ago, its innovative senior curator and art mastermind, Karin Higa, convinced Okubo and …
The Radicalization of a Poet and a Pastor: Diane C. Fujino on Nisei Radicals Mitsuye Yamada and S. Michael Yasutake
May 21, 2021 • Sharon Yamato
It took an engaged scholar like Diane C. Fujino to tell the story of the lives of two extraordinary siblings—poet Mitsuye Yamada and Reverend S. Michael Yasutake—with a deep dive into turbulent Nisei waters. Fujino’s previous work has included books on such audacious Japanese Americans as civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama and prominent Black Panther member Richard Aoki. Always managing to cast a new light on Japanese American history, Fujino’s latest book, Nisei Radicals: The Feminist Poetics and Transformative Ministry …
Giving Thanks During COVID
Dec. 8, 2020 • Sharon Yamato
What began last March as a few months of social distancing has now turned into the prospect of long-term isolation as COVID19 increases at a staggering rate. As a proud member of the senior population considered “high risk,” I can personally attest to the stresses and strains of home confinement. Perhaps the greatest deprivation has been the loss of social interaction except for who we can see on a phone or computer screen — with Skype, FaceTime, and Zoom becoming …
EO9066 vs. COVID-19
April 30, 2020 • Sharon Yamato
I’ve been struggling with what more to say about the pandemic now known as the worst disaster of our lifetimes. I don’t ever remember feeling this fearful and uncertain about the future, particularly knowing as infection and death statistics grow with steady predictability, this highly contagious virus will most certainly infect someone I love, many of whom are in the dangerous high-risk age group. In the midst of this immediate fear, I realized that most of us baby boomers and …
Tule Lake History Passed on from Father to Son: Iwao and Hiroshi Shimizu
Sept. 26, 2019 • Sharon Yamato
Tule Lake Committee chair Hiroshi Shimizu attended his first Tule Lake Pilgrimage in 1994, clutching a folder of papers written in Japanese. He had seen an article announcing the pilgrimage in the Hokubei Mainichi, the former Northern California daily newspaper that his father, Iwao, not only helped to start but also served as its Japanese editor for nearly 25 years. Hiroshi was curious about the place where he had spent time as a child, even though he had always considered …
Cultural Merging and Identity: A Fourth-Generation Okinawan Japanese Peruvian American Speaks Out
June 11, 2019 • Sharon Yamato
Michelle Yamashiro has been told she has little trouble expressing herself. The vibrant 28-year-old Nikkei is not sure whether her outspokenness comes from her Japanese Peruvian parents, who taught her to “think critically and to have an opinion,” or from her Okinawan grandparents, who wanted her to know and understand their tri-continental family history. Whatever the origin, the former interim director of the youth empowerment group, Kizuna, wants others to share her proud passion for learning about and sharing family …
Scrumptiously Inventive Mochi In Fresno
May 29, 2019 • Sharon Yamato
I first learned about Fresno’s landmark mochi shop, Kogetsu-do, 16 years ago while doing research for the Japanese American National Museum’s Annual Dinner Gala. The event’s theme, “Honoring the Family,” paid tribute to more than 70 businesses run by families for three generations, many of them starting out as mom-and-pop operations that were still going strong after more than a century. Most of the honorees were businesses that had managed to survive despite all odds, the biggest obstacle being sudden …
Rediscovered Art at Heart Mountain
April 15, 2019 • Sharon Yamato
It’s no secret that Heart Mountain was the inspiration for many artists held in captivity at the incarceration center that bore its name. The lonely peak towering over the vast wasteland of Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin became a symbol of isolation, perseverance, and hope for many who lost their freedom while under its spell—a symbol that most likely roused a number of artists like Estelle Peck Ishigo, the celebrated Caucasian sketch artist and watercolorist known for having been voluntarily imprisoned with …
