The Artist’s Memory: Soichi Sunami and Japanese American Photography

Tamiko Nimura

I have the museum mostly to myself today.

Notes from a Hallway: Learning from the History of the Tacoma Buddhist Temple

Tamiko Nimura

You could say it really started with a hallway.

On "Giving Back"

Tamiko Nimura

On October 7th, I was asked to share a story on “what inspires me to give back” to a public event hosted by WILLO (Women’s Intergenerational Living Legacy Organization). WILLO is a Tacoma nonprofit organization devoted to sharing stories across generations and cultures, hoping to inspire the next generation ...

A Cup of Water: JA Generations and Practicing Sansei Hope From The Middle

Tamiko Nimura

My car radio, usually turned to a news station, has been tuned to a classical music station for months. I don’t avoid the news, but I have had to figure out when to listen to the news, and to protect myself carefully. For the first time in my life ...

On “Family Separation” in 2018: One Sansei Atlas of Displacement and Mass Incarceration

Tamiko Nimura

As a Sansei, I've been exploring the issue of “family separation,” given the multiple ways that families are being separated due to unjust border policy, travel bans, and mass incarceration. I'm currently writing a family memoir that responds to (and includes passages from) my Nisei father’s unpublished ...

What We Save, How We Save, How We Love: On Family and Community Archives

Tamiko Nimura

Digging into Japanese American Farming History on Vashon Island, Washington

Tamiko Nimura

Like many Sansei, I have agricultural roots. My father’s family worked as sharecroppers during the Depression. My aunties have told stories of harvest time, of the youngest auntie running away to read a book in the orchards. As for me, I grew up in California’s Central Valley and ...

Beyond the Panama Hotel: More Sites Related to Japanese American History in Washington State

Tamiko Nimura

In the Pacific Northwest, there are a couple of famous sites related to Japanese American history, such as Seattle’s Panama Hotel (made famous by Jamie Ford’s novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet), where Japanese Americans stored their belongings during their mass incarceration. Locals from Seattle ...

Objects Waiting to Speak: Starting to Tell the Japanese American History of Fife, Washington

Tamiko Nimura

The Fife History Museum is a converted midcentury home, awaiting its next stage of storytelling—but it’s a place filled with objects waiting to speak.

Resistance at Tule Lake—Talking with Filmmaker Konrad Aderer

Tamiko Nimura

In these difficult political times, resistance appears every day—from marches to political organizing to Star Wars movies to hashtags. But for many within the Japanese American community, resistance remains a difficult and painful topic. Yonsei Konrad Aderer’s latest documentary, Resistance at Tule Lake, seeks to address that topic ...