Joemy Ito-Gates (she/her) is the great granddaughter of a tea master, the granddaughter of a calligrapher, and the daughter of a koto and shamisen player. She volunteers with the grassroots activist organization Japanese American Families for Justice, teaches Dharma School at her local Buddhist temple, and is a proud mother, partner, and long-time public school educator. For her close to twenty years in public education, Joemy has been a passionate advocate for racial and social justice. She currently works in a district-wide position coordinating a roll out of Ethnic Studies, transitional kindergarten through eighth grade, while supporting the ongoing Ethnic Studies efforts at the high school level.

After becoming a mother, Joemy began tapping into another aspect of her own mother’s legacy: her keen sense of fashion. Joemy’s changing body and sense of identity through motherhood led her to find community on social media, where she began to write about the cultural appropriation of the kimono in sustainable fashion and her experiences of motherhood, race, and education. Her writing was published in Britt Hawthorne’s New York Times bestselling book, Raising Antiracist Children, and has been featured in print magazines and online blogs. Joemy has been a guest on several podcasts, and most recently was included in the Multiracial Californians series on KQED’s The California Report Magazine.

Aside from her passion for social and racial justice, Joemy has a deep and abiding love for Star Trek, sewing, J-Pop, K-pop, and Asian snacks.