Asian Descent > Japan Archives

Martha Nishitani

Martha Nishitani was a Seattle modern dance teacher and choreographer, and one of the leading proponents of modern dance in the Pacific Northwest.

Dr Ruby Inouye Shu

Dr. Ruby Inouye Shu was the first Japanese American woman physician in Seattle and an icon in the local Japanese community.

Patti Warashina

American ceramicist internationally recognized for her technically refined, figurative sculptures that helped expand the boundaries of clay as a medium.

Gyo Fujikawa

Gyo Fujikawa (1908–98) was a prolific author, illustrator and designer of children’s books.

Hatsuye Egami was an Issei intellectual who wrote for Japanese American publications in California before the war. Her published assembly center diary and columns for the Gila News Courier provide a rare Issei woman’s perspective on the wartime incarceration.

Lorraine Bannai

Attorney, law professor and member of Fred Korematsu’s coram nobis team.

Mitsuye Endo

Plaintiff in the landmark lawsuit that ultimately led to the closing of the concentration camps and the return of Japanese Americans to the West Coast in 1945.

Nikki Sawada Bridges Flynn

Noriko “Nikki” Sawada Bridges Flynn was a San Francisco-based activist who advocated for civil liberties, equality and democracy.

Misao Tanigoshi

In 1943, three Japanese American women helped two German prisoners of war escape from a Colorado prisoner-of-war (POW) camp. Prosecuted for treason and convicted of conspiracy to commit treason in federal court in 1944, they served two years in prison.

Tsuroko Wallace

In 1943, three Japanese American women helped two German prisoners of war escape from a Colorado prisoner-of-war (POW) camp. Prosecuted for treason and convicted of conspiracy to commit treason in federal court in 1944, they served two years in prison.