Critical Conversation, Art, and Virtual Fundraiser

Maggie Tokuda-Hall has an MFA in creative writing from USF. She is the author of the 2017 Parent's Choice Gold Medal winning picture book, Also an Octopus, illustrated by Benji Davies. The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea is her debut young adult novel, which was an NPR, Kirkus, School Library Journal and Book Page Best Book of 2020. Its sequel, The Siren, The Song and The Spy comes out September 2023. Her graphic novel, Squad, is an Ignyte and Locus Award nominated comic book, and her newest picture book, Love in the Library, has been named a Best Picture Book of 2022 by Book Page, School Library Journal, Booklist, and Publisher’s Weekly. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, children, and objectively perfect dog.

Photo credit: Red Scott

Born in Japan and raised in Seattle, Washington, Tomo Nakayama is an artist whose melodic, complex and emotionally compelling music has been praised by NPR, New York Times, and The Stranger. After two critically acclaimed indie-folk albums “Fog on the Lens” and “Pieces of Sky” (named "Best Folk Act" by Seattle Weekly), he surprised his fans by releasing the synthpop album "Melonday" (on Seattle label Porchlight Records). Co-produced by Yuuki Matthews (The Shins, Teardrops, Sufjan Stevens) and mastered by Dave Cooley (M83, Paramore, Tame Impala), “Melonday” was named one of the Top Albums of 2020 by Seattle Times, KEXP, and Seattle Met Magazine, and debuted at #1 on KEXP’s NW Charts. He has toured across the US and Japan, sharing the stage with Built to Spill, Thao, Daði Freyr, Fleet Foxes, Michael Hurley, Sons of Kemet, Ben Gibbard, Damien Jurado, Wye Oak, and Cornelius. He has collaborated with Dave Matthews, Sera Cahoone, Jherek Bischoff, and Jeremy Enigk (Sunny Day Real Estate). He also composed music and appeared as an actor in the Lynn Shelton film “Touchy Feely” with Elliot Page and Rosemarie DeWitt.

Naomi Ostwald Kawamura (she/her) is the incoming Executive Director of Densho. She graduated from the University of Washington with a BFA in Metal Design and holds a Master’s degree in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is currently completing doctoral work in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, focusing on the intergenerational transfer of memory in the Japanese American and Japanese Canadian communities. She writes on the unique challenges and issues that community history organizations face with the passing of those who survived the forcible removal and incarceration of people of Japanese descent in Canada and the United States.

Prior to Densho, Naomi was the Executive Director of the Nikkei Place Foundation, a Japanese Canadian organization based in British Columbia, Canada. She has also held leadership positions at the San Diego History Center, the California Center for the Arts, and BAVC Media, among others. She is currently the Board President of the Museum Education Roundtable, a Washington DC based organization that publishes the Journal of Museum Education. Naomi has also published articles in peer-reviewed journals and has authored a chapter in "Negotiating Ethnic Diversity and National Identity in History Education: International and Comparative Perspectives," edited by Helen Ting Mu Hung and Luigi Cajani (Forthcoming December 2022, Palgrave MacMillan).

traci kato-kiriyama (they+she; based on unceded Tongva land in the south bay of Los Angeles) -- author of Navigating With(out) Instruments -- is an award-winning multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary artist, recognized for their work as a writer/performer, theatre deviser, cultural producer, community organizer, and audiobook narrator. As a storyteller and Artivist, tkk is grounded in collaborative process, collective self-determination, and art+community as intrinsically tied and a critical means toward connection and healing. She is a performer & principal writer of PULLproject Ensemble, two-time NET recipient; NEFA 2021-22 awardee for their show TALES OF CLAMOR. Their writing, commentary, and work is also featured in a wide swath of media and print publications. tkk is a core artist with Vigilant Love; founding member of the Okaeri Nikkei LGBTQ+ Network; co-chair of the National Nikkei Reparations Coalition; organizer with Nikkei Progressives/NCRR; and serves as the Director/Co-Founder of Tuesday Night Project - presenter of the Tuesday Night Cafe series, now celebrating 25 years as the longest-running Asian American free public arts series in the country.

Karen Maeda Allman worked for many years as Author Events Co-Coordinator and on Community Relations at the Elliott Bay Book Company. She is currently an assistant agent at Wales Literary Agency and serves on the boards of two Seattle based nonprofits. She has served on jury and awards panels for Hedgebrook, the Washington State Book Awards, the NEA Big Read Book Review Committee, the NEA Literary Translation Fellowships, the Kiriyama Prize, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, the 2018 National Book Award for Translated Literature, the 2021 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction and the 2023 CLMP Firecracker Award for Fiction. She worked for independent bookstores for over 30 years and in 2017 was named a Prowda Literary Champion by Seattle Arts and Lectures.

Erin Shigaki (she/they) is a yonsei Japanese American born and raised on the Duwamish land of Seattle, WA. She creates art that is focused on BIPOC experiences, often the World War II incarceration of her community. She is keen to explore the emergence of beauty and intimacy despite intergenerational trauma and pain. Her work also examines the act of reclamation: of land, language, and culture. Erin is a community activist and helps run an annual pilgrimage to Minidoka, the American concentration camp where her family was incarcerated, is active with Tsuru for Solidarity, and serves on the board of Look Listen + Learn, a public access television show that inspires radical Black joy and advances early learning in young children of color.

Erin is the recipient of grants and commissions from ArtsWA, City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, the Wing Luke Museum, Densho, the Kip Tokuda Memorial Washington Civil Liberties Grant, the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Academy of Design’s Abbey Mural Prize, among others. She holds a B.A. from Yale University and believes that wielding art and activism to tell these stories can educate, redress, and incrementally heal.

Emmy-nominated KING 5 News reporter Brady Wakayama leads our program as Densho Gala Master of Ceremonies. A Seattle native, Brady’s passion for journalism sparked while serving various local nonprofit organizations that include: the Seattle Foundation, the United Way of King County, Asian Counseling & Referral Services (ACRS), and the Wing Luke Museum. After graduating from Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication in 2016, he worked in Oregon and New Mexico as a reporter before returning home to join KING 5 in November 2021. He is also an active member of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) and is proud to foster its mission of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) representation and perspectives within the news industry and beyond.