Sustaining Densho's Commitment to Community History

Kathy Masaoka was born and raised in multicultural Boyle Heights and came of age during the late 60’s at the height of the Vietnam War and the dawn of Asian American Studies at UC Berkeley. These experiences shaped her values and direction. Since 1971, she has worked on issues related to youth, workers, housing in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles and redress for Japanese Americans. Currently Cochair of the Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress (NCRR), she served on the Editorial Team for the book, “NCRR: The Grassroots Struggle for Japanese American Redress and Reparations”, helped to educate the American public about the camps through the film/curriculum, “Stand Up for Justice” and was part of the NCRR 9/11 Committee which worked to build relationships with the American Muslim community after 9/11.

Kathy was honored to represent NCRR in Japan to support the rights of Koreans and other minorities in 1988. She continues to support reparations for Comfort Women who were used as sexual slaves during WWII by the Japanese military and through the Nikkei Progressives/NCRR Reparations Committee she is able to help build solidarity for immigrants and for long overdue reparations for African Americans. Retired from teaching at an LAUSD continuation high school, she lives in Los Angeles (Tongva land) with Mark Masaoka. They have a daughter Mayumi and son Dan and grandsons, Yuma, Leo and Keanu.

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.

Don Tamaki is a Senior Counsel at the San Francisco law firm of Minami Tamaki LLP having received his B.A. and J.D. from Berkeley.

In the 1980’s, he was a member of the pro bono legal team that reopened the landmark 1944 Supreme Court case of Fred Korematsu, overturning Mr. Korematsu’s criminal conviction for defying the incarceration of some 125,000 Japanese Americans.

In 2021, he was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to serve on the nine-member California Reparations Task Force (the Task Force) that produced the groundbreaking Final Report comprehensively documenting the cumulative impact of 246 years of enslavement, another 100 years of Jim Crow oppression, and decades more of segregation, and to recommend to the Legislature what California should do to address the resulting compounding and cascading harms.

Tamaki is part of the leadership team of the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth (ARRT), a multi-racial statewide coalition working to promote public awareness of the harms wrought by racial subjugation, and to transform the Task Force’s 115 recommendations into legislation.

He is the recipient of the ABA Spirit of Excellence Award (2020), the National Asian Pacific Bar Association Trailblazer Award (2003), and the State Bar of California Loren Miller Award (1987).

Naomi Ostwald Kawamura is the Executive Director of Densho. Born and raised in San Diego, California, Naomi holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Washington, a Master’s degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in Education from the University of British Columbia. Her scholarly research focuses on cultural memory practices in Japanese American and Japanese Canadian communities and she has contributed as a guest editor and author in peer-reviewed journals and editions. Prior to Densho, Naomi was the Executive Director of the Nikkei Place Foundation, a Japanese Canadian organization based in British Columbia. She has held leadership positions at the San Diego History Center, the Museum Education Roundtable, and BAVC Media, among others.

Jennifer Noji is Densho's Senior Development and Communications Manager. She is a Yonsei who was born in Norway, grew up in New Jersey, and currently lives in Los Angeles, California.As the granddaughter of Gila River and Minidoka concentration camp survivors, she has dedicated much of her academic, professional, and personal life to learning and teaching about the WWII incarceration and other historical injustices. Jennifer holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Communications from Rutgers University, an M.A. from UCLA, and she is currently pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature with a concentration in Asian American Studies at UCLA. Her research explores how literature reckons with US legacies of racial and colonial violence, and she teaches undergraduate courses on forced incarceration, displacement, critical race theory, and human rights, among other topics. She has published articles on memory and political violence in various academic journals and volumes. In addition to her academic work, Jennifer has years of experience working in communications and fundraising, both with non-profits and community organizations. At Densho she works in strategic communications, helping with our development, marketing, and education work, and she manages the Digital Collection of Japanese American Incarceration Films project.