traci kato-kiriyama
@traciakemitraci kato-kiriyama, they+she, based on unceded Tongva Land, is a queer Sansei/Yonsei Nikkei inter/multi/transdisciplinary artist, poet, actor, educator, and cultural producer. They are principal writer/performer of PULLproject Ensemble; author of Signaling (2011, The Undeniables) and Navigating With(out) Instruments (2021, Writ Large Projects), Director/Founder of Tuesday Night Project, and an award-winning audiobook narrator. traci is a community organizer with Nikkei Progressives and the National Nikkei Reparations Coalition and a recipient of several distinguished lectureships, fellowships, and residencies. traci's writing, work, and commentary has been featured in a wide swath of publications including NPR, PBS, and C-SPAN. Hosts for tkk’s performance, storytelling, poetry, teaching/facilitation, and speaking include The Smithsonian, The Getty, Skirball Cultural Center, Hammer Museum, and many more.
tkk has been curating the Nikkei Uncovered: poetry column since its inception in 2016, and has recently been dabbling in a new passion with film (co-directing, dramaturgy, production). (Profile image by Raquel Joyce Fujimaki)
Updated December 2024
Stories from This Author
Diminishing for No One…
April 17, 2025 • Patrick Shiroishi , traci kato-kiriyama
This month’s theme is derived directly from the first poem here from Patrick Shiroishi, a dynamic multidisciplinary artist and musician based here in Los Angeles—who I had the privilege of meeting at our recent celebration of The Gate of Memory anthology (eds. Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda). Patrick and his work, memories and ancestors are “diminishing for no one” and his poetry here carries us through the ways we remember, make declarations of being in this continuum, and dare to …
Surging
March 20, 2025 • Richard Hamasaki , Miya Iwataki , traci kato-kiriyama
It’s hard to believe that this month we celebrate the 100th edition of Nikkei Uncovered: a poetry column! We wanted to feature two poets for this special milestone—Hawai‘i based poet & filmmaker Richard Hamasaki, and Los Angeles based writer & community leader Miya Iwataki. Each of their poems have a fight emerging through their phrases, urging us to remember, towards poetry that “ruptures imprisoned memories,” towards our “cultural soul,” towards action and community. Both Miya and Richard have poetry featured …
No Murallas
Feb. 20, 2025 • Erica Isomura , traci kato-kiriyama
Tkaronto/Toronto, Ontario-based writer-artist Erica Isomura lends us a moment of action captured in this month’s dynamic poem, “Haibun for February 19”—harkening back to efforts to shut down down detention centers in 2020, while cycling right to the present. This month, there are Day Of Remembrance commemorations all around the country and this selection reminds us to keep showing up now. The dream is still ahead of us—No Walls, indeed. This poem is featured in the forthcoming anthology, The Gate of …
Attempts at Remembering
Jan. 23, 2025 • Syd Westley , Sharon Hashimoto , traci kato-kiriyama
For the next few months, we have the pleasure and privilege of being able to feature selections in the upcoming anthology, The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration (eds., Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda, Haymarket Books, 2025). This month, I am excited to feature two writers, Sansei writer Sharon Hashimoto, hailing from the Pacific Northwest, and Yonsei poet and artist Syd Westley, based in Oakland. Their poems nudge us to grapple with memory itself—the memory passed …
Belonging
Dec. 19, 2024 • Nikkei Progressives , traci kato-kiriyama
As we come into the end of 2024, I wanted to share a piece I wrote as a reflection of the pilgrimage we made to Manzanar through our Nikkei Progressives Reparations Committee (a group of folks dedicated to the study, public education and support of Black Reparations, and growing our engagement and support of Landback, land sovereignty, and continued support of the Comfort Women). Our buses held a deep and expansive community of folks. We asked all to enter the …
(R)evolving
Nov. 28, 2024 • Liana Nakamura , traci kato-kiriyama
For this month, we are so grateful to present poetry in three languages—Portuguese, Japanese, and English—from the wonderful poet, artist, librarian, Liana Nakamura, of the “land of persimmons” Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo, Brazil. The translation in Japanese was provided by Nodoka Nakaya, and the translation in English is provided by the author. Liana’s poem “the street market” keeps us in and moves us through the of the minutiae of the day, returning us to the circular ending, to begin …
Grappling
Oct. 17, 2024 • Jason Finkelman , traci kato-kiriyama
I recently had the great privilege of being hosted as a George A. Miller Visiting Artist at the University of Illinois and thus being able to spend time with artists Jason Finkelman and his wife, dancer/choreographer Cynthia Oliver. We had an informal salon of sorts at their home and I was able to witness brief touches of their art, when we came to this poem, written by Jason, who is a Nikkei Jewish musician and artist in Urbana, Illinois. As …
Minidoka
Sept. 19, 2024 • Lawrence Matsuda , traci kato-kiriyama
This month calls back Minidoka survivor Lawrence Matsuda into the Nikkei Uncovered poetry column and has inspired me to begin, from time to time, presenting columns with poetry related directly to a singular site of incarceration. Mr. Matsuda’s poems on Minidoka come from the perspective as a child in the camps and, from tears to night terrors to indelible scars, this is poetry that is not is easy to take in…and I am grateful for what it reveals and insists …
Recollections
July 18, 2024 • Christine Kitano , traci kato-kiriyama
This month, we are so delighted to feature poetry by writer and professor Christine Kitano, with two pieces from her latest chapbook Dumb Luck & other poems (Texas Review Press). Her pieces have us reflecting on the paths of the past that lead us to exactly where we are now, and the things we may hold in our bodies, our memories, despite the passage of time. I am excited that we get to feature Professor Kitano this month and look …
Burning
June 20, 2024 • Mariko Fujimoto Rooks , traci kato-kiriyama
We hope this finds everyone well and able to find rest and rejuvenation amidst all of daily grinds and strife that too easily abounds. I’m always grateful to provide some poetry, as a balm and as hopeful fire for our greater work in the world. This month is of course no exception—from the wondrous Mariko Rooks, community health practitioner and creative, we share their poem on the “carcinogenic caverns” of time, on “...war and cigarettes...”—taking us on a search through …
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