Erica Hiroko Isomura is a yonsei Japanese and Chinese Canadian writer and multidisciplinary artist based in what is now known as Vancouver, British Columbia. Erica is the recipient of Room Magazine’s 2021 Emerging Writer Award and the winner of the 8th annual “Writing in the Margins” contest held by Briarpatch Magazine for her creative non-fiction piece titled “FOR THE DREAMERS” in 2019.
Her works have been presented by cultural organizations across Western Canada [1] and one of Erica’s recent notable performances took place at the MacKenzie Art Gallery’s Human Capital exhibit in Regina, Saskatchewan in collaboration with Briarpatch Magazine to launch a publication on migrant justice [2]. Her latest project involves researching and writing a collection of essays, initiated with the support of author mentor Hiromi Goto. Erica’s racialized, queer identity is central to her art and community organizing efforts that bolsters cross-community solidarities for Japanese and Chinese Canadian activism in British Columbia and beyond.
The themes of Erica’s literary non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and graphic work touch on prevalent social justice issues affecting her communities, such as gentrification in Chinatown and representation for queer Asian Canadian identities. Creative storytelling is a powerful avenue with which to “build worlds that we can imagine that produce other, better realities,” a message that resonates across disciplines and identities.
https://ericahiroko.ca/writing.html
In recent years, Erica’s organizing has centered around arts and culture production, volunteering as a member of Powell Street Festival’s programming committee and producing ensoku, a multi-day community “unconference” in Vancouver, attended by young Japanese Canadian and Americans from across North America. Erica’s organizing work largely focuses on empowering a younger generation of Japanese Canadians, including her involvement with diasporic organizations such as Kikiai Collaborative. “Kikiai” loosely translates to “listening to one another.” They work towards creating spaces for younger Japanese Canadian voices, whether through arts and culture, politics, history, collective healing, or otherwise.
Erica previously co-founded a Japanese Canadian writing collective with friends called Kugi collective, a nationwide writing group that produced a series of writing to reflect on race and identity. “Kugi” translates to “nail,” which Erica explains as follows: “You know in Japanese society, there’s typically an idea that everyone’s harmonious. And so the idea of our work [was] that we’re kind of like the nail that’s sticking out.” Kugi collective strived to deepen conversations about racism within and across intergenerational Japanese Canadian communities: “If we were talking to a grandparent, how would we talk about race today without negating their experiences through Internment? And [also] recognizing that for us, it’s really important to support Indigenous folks, Black folks, Muslim folks in Canada and beyond who are experiencing similar forms of discrimination that our communities did.”
“You know in Japanese society, there’s typically an idea that everyone’s harmonious. And so the idea of our work [was] that we’re kind of like the nail that’s sticking out.”
Erica Hiroko Isomura
Erica’s community engagement projects are also tied to discovering ancestral Japanese Canadian memory, such as her contributions to a book called Our Edible Roots. This project was organized by the Tonari Gumi Garden Club about histories of issei and nisei farmers and the gardening and foraging practices related to Japanese vegetables on the West Coast. The book aims to preserve intergenerational knowledge and all proceeds from book sales support local seniors’ organization Tonari Gumi in Vancouver.
Erica notes that the garden club’s activities also supplement a senior’s meal program at Tonari Gumi: “We did a lot of meal and food sharing. It’s been one way for me to learn a lot about Japanese traditions and customs that I didn’t grow up with.” The diverse range of Erica’s engagement through community organizing underscores the creative possibilities that arise from not only connecting with one’s cultural roots but also by building collectives with other racialized peers who share the complexities of embodying marginalized lived experiences in the Japanese and Chinese Canadian diaspora.
In 2021, Erica released a graphic poster with the Graphic History Collective’s Remember Resist Redraw project on resistance to gentrification in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Currently, she is working and collaborating on several dynamic artistic projects. She anticipates producing and performing new work for local festivals, depending on local health authority restrictions. As part of her writing portfolio, Erica is writing her first book and developing a poetry chapbook. She recently started a blog and newsletter, where she writes about artistic process and shares creative reflections.
Key Themes: BIPOC solidarity, queerness, queer intimacies, community organizing, collectives, creative production, ancestral memory
Interview conducted by Shō Tanaka on April 9th, 2018.
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References
1. Kanbara, Bryce. (2019). Japanese Canadians in the arts. Royal Ontario Museum. https://www.rom.on.ca/sites/default/files/imce/exhibitions/bjc/japanese_canadians_in_the_arts.pdf
2. Japanese Canadian Artists’ Directory. (2020). Bryce Kanbara Biography and Artist Statement. Japanese Canadian Artists’ Directory. https://japanesecanadianartists.com/artist/bryce-kanbara/
3. The Canadian Press. (23 February 2021). Bryce Kanbara says collaborators share credit for Governor General’s art award. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/kanbara-1.5924121
4. The Royal Ontario Museum Media Centre. (27 November 2018). ROM Presents Being Japanese Canadian: reflections on a broken world. The Royal Ontario Museum. https://www.rom.on.ca/en/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/rom-presents-being-japanese-canadian-reflections-on-a-broken-world