Erica Hiroko Isomura (b. 1991) is a yonsei writer, poet, multi-disciplinary artist and cultural producer. Born on the west coast, she was raised by a Canadian-born Chinese mom and sansei dad in New Westminster, BC/occupied Qayqayt territories.
Erica’s JC family lived in East Vancouver and fished on the Skeena river before the internment, when they were displaced to Tashme, Greenwood, and New Denver. After the war, her family re-settled in Montreal and returned to the coast in the 1970's. Her Chinese Canadian family lived through the Head Tax and Chinese Exclusion Act, running businesses in Vancouver’s Chinatown.
As a community organizer and cultural producer, Erica has developed programs and events with kikiai collaborative, Powell Street Festival Society, and Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre. She volunteered on the Hastings Park education committee and co-edited Our Edible Roots with the Tonari Gumi gardeners, a book project to share kitchen garden stories and raise funds for the Tonari Gumi seniors meal program.
In 2021, Erica received Room magazine's Emerging Writer Award and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Her personal essay "FOR THE DREAMERS" won Briarpatch magazine's 2019 Writing in the Margins contest. Erica is currently at work on a poetry collection, a book of essays, and a project bringing multi-generational, racialized artists into conversation with one another.