Seattle Samurai: A Cartoonist's Perspective of the Japanese American Experience

A Pacific Northwest Book Award (PNBA) Winner • Will Eisner Award Nominee

What was it like for early Japanese immigrants coming to the United States in the early 1900s — trying to hold onto samurai values while chasing the American dream?

Seattle Samurai moves through the arc of the Japanese American experience — from early immigration and picture brides to WWII incarceration, redress, and the generations born after. It is a book for readers who connect to Japanese culture, samurai wisdom, and the immigrant experience — told through memoir, cartoons, and the stories of those who lived it.

Seattle Samurai is a family memoir and a cultural collage — part graphic novel, part family scrapbook — layering comic strips, photographs, archival documents, personal memorabilia, and handwritten notes to preserve stories passed on through oral tradition that might otherwise have been lost to time. Sam Goto's cartoons are funny, warm, and deceptively wise — the kind you read once for the laugh and again to learn more.

Between 2012 and 2018, cartoonist Sam Goto drew over 250 multi-paneled Seattle Tomodachi ("friend of Seattle") comic strips for The North American Post, chronicling the lives of early Japanese settlers and their American-born children. Through his semi-autobiographical characters — Shigeru Tomo and his alter ego, Samurai Shigeru — Sam brought humor, heart, and the code of bushido (loyalty, honor, courage) to the story of a community that survived immigration, forced incarceration, and the long work of rebuilding. He passed away in 2017, leaving behind both a body of work and a daughter determined to honor it.

Design researcher and author Kelly Goto spent years assembling this collection — not just as a tribute to her father, but as an act of remembrance for an entire generation of Japanese Americans in the Pacific Northwest. Page by page, she layers his cartoon strips with family photographs, historical artifacts, and her own reflective narrative, creating a book as rich and layered as the history it carries.

For anyone who loves Japanese culture, samurai stories, cartoons, graphic memoirs, Asian American history, or the kind of family story that stays with you long after the last page.

Kelly Goto grew up as a fourth-generation Japanese American in the Pacific Northwest — launching her first entrepreneurial venture in elementary school with a calligraphy and graphic design business, and never looking back. As a young girl, she played Chieko in the stage production of The Gold Watch, where she first learned about the racism and anti-Japanese sentiment that followed Pearl Harbor. 

A global speaker, educator, and advocate for accessible and inclusive design, she has spent more than 25 years leading gotomedia, a research and strategy consultancy helping the world’s largest organizations design digital experiences that work for all people, regardless of age or ability. Her book Web Redesign 2.0: Workflow That Works became an industry classic, translated into more than 16 languages and helped shape the field now known as user experience (UX). 

Kelly has been featured in the New York Times, Inc., HOW Magazine, and Communication Arts, and speaks internationally on human-centered design, inclusive technology, and the future of AI and accessibility. She returned to Seattle in 2020 after three decades away and now lives on Mercer Island — in her childhood home — with her two teenage daughters, her mother Dee, and a playful Bernedoodle named Suki. Seattle Samurai is her most personal work yet: a continuation of her parents’ lifelong dedication to preserving Japanese American history, heritage, and values for the next generation.

Sam Goto was the creator of the Seattle Tomodachi cartoon strip that describes the experiences of Japanese Americans in the 20th century. The strip ran for five years in The North American Post. He passed away in 2017.