Kyoko Nakamaru
Kyoko Nakamaru is an interdisciplinary artist, storyteller, writer, spiritual counselor, and hobby musician who uses her relationship with ancestors and the unseen to weave stories of what was and what will be.
A Yonsei, raised in Wisconsin and Iowa by devoted local and global activists, Kyoko considers herself a part of the internment diaspora, those whose families were permanently displaced from the west coast after WWII. She continues to carry her family’s commitment to environmentalism, social justice, and human rights and seeks to use all the mediums she works in as medicine to help her communities heal. Kyoko is one of the co-founders of Japanese American Womxn Speak, a network of Nikkei feminist artists dedicated to social change.
Updated January 2018
Stories from This Author
Japanese American Women Speak
Jan. 17, 2019 • Tani Ikeda , Kyoko Nakamaru , traci kato-kiriyama
For this month’s column, opening us into a whole new year, I’m so happy to feature healer and artist kyoko nakamaru and filmmaker Tani Ikeda, who together are co-founders of JAWS — Japanese American Women Speak. They are both based in Los Angeles, California (Kyoko via Wisconsin and Iowa, and Tani via Seattle). Both selections here are impassioned pieces by two fierce Nikkei who call on us to listen, respond and heal with the world around us. —traci kato-kiriyama * …
Weaving
June 21, 2018 • A’misa Chiu , Kyoko Nakamaru , traci kato-kiriyama
Happy summer, everyone! We’re excited to bring two more new voices to the Discover Nikkei platform - originally from the Midwest and now residing in LA, Kyoko Nakamaru; and originally from the South Bay and now residing in Portland, A’misa Chiu. Kyoko’s pieces connect her sense of self to another time and another shore in her lineage. A’misa’s deeply personal piece weaves in and out of the context of cultural silence sometimes too well known within Nikkeihood. Both poets’ pieces …
