Tamiko.F Nimura author page

Tamiko.F Nimura biography

Tamiko F. Nimura is a Japanese American writer, historian and editor whose work explores identity, family history and the Japanese American experience. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Washington. Her writing has appeared in The Seattle Times, Discover Nikkei and Hippocampus Magazine, and she has contributed regularly to the Densho Blog on Japanese American history and community.

Nimura wrote Rosa Franklin: A Life in Health Care, Public Service, and Social Justice, published by the Washington State Legislature Oral History Program in 2020. She co-wrote We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration with Frank Abe; the graphic novel was published by Chin Music Press in 2021 and tells the stories of Japanese Americans who resisted incarceration during the Second World War.

Nimura contributed entries on Lonny Kaneko and Janice Mirikitani to Asian American Poets: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, edited by Guiyou Huang and published by Greenwood on 30 May 2002. She also contributed to The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration, published on 1 April 2025.

Nimura’s nonfiction book A Place for What We Lose: A Daughter’s Return to Tule Lake combines passages from her father Taku’s unpublished memoir of growing up in California’s Tule Lake Japanese-American concentration camp during the Second World War with her own reflections and chapters spanning 2010 to 2022. A Place for What We Lose: A Daughter’s Return to Tule Lake was published by the University of Washington on 28 April 2026.