Javier García Wong-Kit is a journalist, professor, and director of Otros Tiempos magazine. Author of Tentaciones narrativas (Redactum, 2014) and De mis cuarenta (ebook, 2021), he writes for Kaikan, the magazine of the Japanese Peruvian Association.

Updated April 2022

Ricardo G. Hokama is a Nikkei born in Buenos Aires in 1968. He majored in journalism at the Argentine Catholic University, specializing in Radio and Television Production. Since his youth he has participated in leadership positions within the Japanese community in Argentina. Today, he is vice president of the Argentine Nikkei Center and the Argentine Center of Former Fellows of Japan.  He also is director of the press at the Argentine Nikkei Center and editor of Argentine Nikkei. Hokama produces and directs the radio program "Japan Today" on Palermo Radio of Buenos Aires.

Updated February 2023

Kyra Karatsu was born and raised in Santa Clarita, CA. She is currently a first-year Journalism student at College of the Canyons in Valencia, CA and hopes to transfer to a university after the completion of her AA degree. Kyra is a Japanese-German Yonsei and enjoys reading and writing about the Asian American experience.

Updated January 2021

Karen Kawaguchi is a writer based in New York City. She was born in Tokyo to a Japanese mother and a Nisei father from Seattle. He served in the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Service while his family was incarcerated at Minidoka. Karen and her family moved to the U.S. in the late 1950’s, living mostly in the Chicago area. In 1967, they moved to Okinawa where she went to Kubasaki High School. She subsequently attended Wesleyan University (CT) and later lived in Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Seattle. She recently retired as an editor in educational publishing, having worked for Heinemann, Pearson, and other leading publishers. She volunteers for organizations such as Literacy Partners (adult ESL) and enjoys going to Japan Society, art museums, and botanical gardens. She feels fortunate to be able to draw deeply from the three cultures in her life: Japanese, American, and Japanese-American.

Updated June 2022

Carol Komatsuka is Managing Director of Development at Southern California Public Radio, L.A.’s #1 NPR station, working with the major gifts team and on fundraising strategy. She began her career at Home Savings and Loan on the company’s employee magazine, and moved on to the marketing department where she launched the company’s ethnic marketing program.

During that time she volunteered at the Japanese American National Museum for 10 years chairing the opening committees for the Historic Building in 1992 and the Pavilion in 1999. She joined the JANM staff that year and served as Vice President of External Relations.  

Carol was born and raised in Boyle Heights and has a degree in journalism from USC. Her now adult daughter’s name is engraved on the Children’s Courtyard.

Updated November 2022

Born in São Paulo, Tatiana Maebuchi is a third generation Japanese Brazilian on her mother’s side, and fourth generation on her father’s side. She is a journalist with a degree from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica in São Paulo, and has written for magazines, websites, and media marketing. She is also a travel blogger. As a member of the communications team of the Brazilian Society of Japanese Culture and Social Welfare (Bunkyo), Maebuchi helped contribute to the dissemination of Japanese culture.

Updated July 2015

Kimiko Medlock is an occasional freelance writer currently living in the Bay area. She holds an MA in modern Japanese history.

Updated January 2022

Esther Newman grew up in California. After college and a career in marketing and media production for Ohio’s Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, she returned to school to study twentieth century American history. While in graduate school, she became interested in her family’s history which led to research on topics affecting the Japanese Diaspora including internment, migration and assimilation. She is retired but her interest in writing about and supporting organizations related to these subjects continues.

Updated November 2021

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