Paulette M. Moreno

Paulette M. Moreno is a civil rights leader, poet, musician, speaker and current Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood. Her ancestry is Japanese, Hispanic, and Alaska Native of the Tlingit Nation. Paulette was born near Mount Edgecumbe, a volcano in Sitka, Alaska. Her grandfather, George Miyasato Sr., and her uncle, George Miyasato Jr., were incarcerated during World War II. She is working with her mother, Harriet Beleal, to find healing from the racism and discrimination her family experienced during the war and in the years that would follow because of their Native and Japanese heritage.

Updated May 2021

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Nikkei Uncovered: a poetry column

Dancing in the Clouds

This month, we have the honor of publishing works by two poets who lent their voices to our second annual reading last week for “Nikkei Uncovered”—Shō Tanaka and Paulette M. Moreno. They both took great care in what and how they delivered their words together as a pairing that we featured alongside Amy Uyematsu & Miya Iwataki, and Mariko Fujimoto Rooks & Dr. Curtiss Takada Rooks. I was struck not only by the beauty of their storytelling, but the vessels they are to their layered and intersectional history, calling on us to further contemplate the complexities, pain, …

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