ABOUT
Sharon Yamato is a journalist, nonfiction writer, TV producer, and independent filmmaker with more than four decades of experience in media writing and production.
She began her career working as an associate producer and producer in the public affairs department at KNBC-TV. She then joined Westinghouse Broadcasting Company to become an associate producer for the syndicated talk shows, EveryDay and The Toni Tennille Show. She also produced segments for the KCBS talk show, Two on the Town.
She began her filmmaking career by writing, directing, and producing Out of Infamy, a short film about celebrated writer/activist Michi Nishiura Weglyn, whose book Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps, has become a staple in high school and college classrooms. The short documentary garnered Honorable Mention at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010.
She then wrote, directed and produced A Flicker in Eternity, based on the diary and letters of WWII veteran Stanley Hayami, who became the subject of the innovative 2020 virtual reality project, A Life in Pieces, for which she served as creative consultant. Her film, Moving Walls, the story of what happened to the scores of barracks found at the site of the former concentration camp at Heart Mountain, was accompanied by the book, Moving Walls: Preserving the Barracks of America’s Concentration Camps, featuring photos by the award-winning photographer, Stan Honda.
She is also the co-author of Jive Bomber: A Sentimental Journey, a memoir of Bruce T. Kaji, the founding president of the Japanese American National Museum. As a consultant to the Japanese American National Museum, she served as editor of the Museum Magazine and project director of The Encyclopedia of Japanese American History from A to Z (revised edition), An American Son: The Story of George Aratani, and More than a Game: Sport in the Japanese American Community.
She has written articles for the Los Angeles Times and is currently a columnist for The Rafu Shimpo.
Born in Denver, Colorado, and raised in Pasadena, California, she graduated from UCLA with bachelors and masters degrees in English literature.
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