Name: Kelly Goto with Lori Matsukawa and Performance by Seattle Kokon Taiko
Start: 2025-04-23T19:30:00-07:00
End: 2025-04-23T19:30:00-07:00
Location: The Wyncote NW Forum

Kelly Goto with Lori Matsukawa and Performance by Seattle Kokon Taiko

Japanese-American History Captured in Comics

Date:: Wednesday, April 23
Time:: 7:30 pm PDT
Cost:: $10 - $35 Sliding Scale

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Venue

: The Wyncote NW Forum
: 1119 8th Ave (Entrance off Seneca St.)
Seattle, 98101 United States + Google Map

Event Format: In-Person

Note: Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.

From left to right: Headshots of Kelly Goto (wearing a blue shirt and glasses) and Lori Matsukawa (wearing a purple shirt). Both speakers have fair skin and shoulder-length black hair.

Arts & Culture

Did you know that there was a successful comic based right here in Seattle? Between 2012 and 2018, artist Sam Goto drew over 250 multi-paneled comic strips called Seattle Tomodachi (“friend of Seattle”) for The North American Post. Seattle Tomodachi chronicled the lives and stories of early Japanese settlers and their Japanese-American children and other descendants. From immigration, mass removal and incarceration, to the rebuilding of social connections, Goto sought to portray the memories and experiences of the Japanese community. Through his work, he captured elements of culture, nostalgia, and history, while infusing his characters with the samurai values of courage, respect, compassion, and improvement.

Goto’s daughter Kelly reflects on her late father’s legacy as she revives his work in the collection Seattle Samurai: A Cartoonist’s Perspective of the Japanese American Experience. Kelly Goto blends her text with photos and memorabilia that help contextualize her father’s work and anchor its place in Seattle’s cultural history.

This special event will feature a drum performance with Seattle Kokon Taiko.

Kelly Goto is a global lecturer, educator and author of the industry classic Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow That Works. Goto currently heads up gotomedia, a global leader in research-driven strategy and solutions for digital products and connected experiences. Kelly grew up as a fourth-generation Japanese American in the drizzly weather of the Pacific Northwest, starting her calligraphy and graphic design businesses while in elementary school. In 1977, she played Chieko in the stage production of The Gold Watch, where she learned about racism and anti-Japanese sentiment after Pearl Harbor. She returned to Seattle in 2020 after three decades away, and now lives in her childhood home with her genki 85-year old mom, Dee, two teenage daughters, and a playful Bernedoodle named Suki.

Lori Matsukawa is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist with more than 40 years in the industry. She retired after 36 years as an anchor and reporter at KING TV in Seattle. Ms. Matsukawa won two Northwest Regional Emmy Awards, one in 2017 for her series Prisoners in Their Own Land about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and another in 2018 for Shane Sato: Portraits of Courage about a photographer’s mission to photograph Nisei veterans who served as part of America’s “Greatest Generation.” In 2024, she received an Icon Award from the Very Asian Foundation for community service and trailblazing a path for future journalists. She is a co-founder of the Seattle Chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association and the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington. Her first children’s book, Brave Mrs. Sato based on her real life grandmother who was a picture bride, was published in November 2022.

Seattle Kokon Taiko (SKT) formed in 1980 and is Washington’s first performing taiko ensemble. SKT is based in the local Japanese American community and has performed at schools, arts festivals, street fairs, community programs, corporate events and in concert throughout Washington and Oregon.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle.