2026 - 45“x45” - Foundation paper piecing, machine quilted without a frame (domestic). Font pattern is Blackletter Alphabet by Patch and Dot.

In the fall of 2024, my mom and I had the privilege to attend Tsuru for Solidarity’s Kintsugi gathering for healing and repair of Japanese American Community Trauma from WWII in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo.

During a session on the rarely discussed immediate post-incarceration experience of Japanese Americans, I asked the panel for advice on how to navigate receiving only bits and pieces of our ancestral history. “Remembering is just another way of knowing,” explained on of the speakers. “You kind of need to allow yourself to be haunted.”

The phrase has since guided my ancestry work. I designed this quilt to loosely resemble a hanko, or Japanese ink seal. Hanko stamps are passed down from generation to generation and used to certify important documents like birth, death, and marriage certificates.