Nisei actress Takayo (Tsubouchi) Fischer appeared in dozens of major Hollywood films including Moneyball (2011), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) and War of the Worlds (2005).
Poet and activist Violet Kazue Yamane Matsuda de Cristoforo (1917-2007) wrote, translated, and compiled Japanese language haiku poetry composed by Japanese immigrants and Kibei.
Hisako Shimizu Hibi (1907–91) was an Issei painter and printmaker who exhibited throughout her career, and by the end of her life she was well entrenched in the San Francisco Bay Area arts community. During WWII, she produced a body of work reflecting life at the Topaz concentration camp in Utah, and taught at the Topaz Art School .
The first Asian American woman to be elected to the United States Senate.
Nobuko JoAnne Miyamoto (1939-) is a songwriter, dance and theater artist, author, and Artistic Director of Great Leap, who found her political and artistic voice in the Asian American movement.
Chizu Kitano Iiyama (1921-2020) was an activist, social worker and educator who participated in social movements such as the Japanese American Redress Movement, integration in Chicago and the treatment of Arab Americans after 9/11.
Pioneering two-term Republican Congresswoman from Hawai’i, 1987–91.
Community and religious leader in Hawai’i.
Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga played a crucial role in the Japanese-American redress movement by discovering critical evidence of premeditated governmental misconduct during WWII, and making it available to multiple groups of activists.
Doris Hayashi (1920–2012) was a social worker who participated in the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study as a researcher while incarcerated at the temporary detention center at Tanforan, in California, and the permanent concentration camp at Topaz, Utah.