Behind the Emerald Curtain: Yuko Kodama

Welcome to our new series: Behind the Emerald Curtain!

Earlier this year, we launched the “Meet Our Rainmakers!” series, featuring readers whose contributions help us amplify the authentic voices of the South End. Now, with this new series, we’ll continue to meet members of our community, but this time, we’re peering behind the curtain to take a look at the people who bring the Emerald to life each day.

Stay tuned for more Rainmaker and Behind the Emerald Curtain mini-profiles, where you can learn more about the communities that support and create the Emerald.

Want to be a Rainmaker? Head to our Kindful webpage to support BIPOC-led media in South Seattle with a monthly contribution of any amount.

Already a Rainmaker? Thank you!

Yuko Kodama

Award-winning journalist Yuko Kodama joined the Emerald as its news editor in August, bringing with her several decades of experience in media as well as an ongoing devotion to the communities the Emerald covers. Right now, she lives in the north end, but she has also lived in the South End, and it holds a special place in her heart. “I just love that there are so many different groups of people,” she said. “All the different foods and all the different ways of looking at the world in this space where we do our usual day to day together.” 

In her years of living and working in the South End, she’s frequently witnessed the community’s creativity and care, “the way that people come together … to take care of each other and make the neighborhood better.” She recalls an era in Columbia City when community members painted the storefronts with what they dreamed they’d love to see there, like an ice cream shop and a bookstore. She also remembers how South Seattle groups rallied during the pandemic to make sure community members were fed. “All the people coming together to put together boxes of food, and then not just boxes of food, but the love that they would put into it, the care, like, seed packets … that kind of stuff is really moving.”

While she’s now embedded in the South End, Kodama’s career has spanned the globe. In the early ’90s, she worked in Japan and then Indonesia as a producer for Tokyo Today. In 1995, she moved to Seattle and became Tokyo Today’s North American correspondent. After that, she worked as a Sound Transit community liaison for Beacon Hill and Rainier Valley, but “I just missed working in media so much that I just was looking around for other opportunities. And that’s when I found community radio.” She became a producer and then news director at KBCS-FM, where she spent decades engaging in community media, uplifting diverse local voices at a time when “our media is so dominated by larger places. She said, “I love community media because it centers the community. It is a reflection of the community. … I believe in the potential of what community media can be.” 

This focus on local voices fits right in with the Emerald’s mission, though transitioning from audio to print has involved some adjustment. “There’s a part of me that grieves being able to hear the person’s cadence in the way they say something, or the pauses in between phrases. You can hear a lot in a person’s voice,” she said. “Although, I think the Emerald has lots of opportunities to use audio and video in the future, and even now. And I also am learning a lot about the beauty of print too … how nimble it is. … The focus of the Emerald is about helping people get their voices out and amplified. And so there are more creative approaches to … how you write something.”

And her esteem for the Emerald transcends story format. “It’s the approach that the Emerald has in honoring the community and the full range of experiences of life in this community,” she said.

Kodama’s career has kept her busy over the years — and now that she’s finding a bit more free time, her focus remains on community. She spends a lot of her time attending community events, whether for fun or fundraising. She also ventures into nature with her daughter, who loves to forage and explore the medicinal and edible uses of plants. “I learn a lot from hanging out with her,” Kodama said. “I feel like I have a different relationship with the environment now than I used to. … It’s a whole different feeling to go into the woods and be like, ‘Oh, these are my friends, to help.’ And that’s a whole different relationship than I had growing up. That’s been really cool.” Kodama loves to cook, particularly Japanese food, and some of the plants she forages end up in her dishes. “So that makes me get out of my usual Japanese food fare and into, okay, what do I do with nettles? … What about maple blossoms or a dandelion? … Over a while of being here, it’s turned into more like, how do I preserve these cherry blossoms in salt? And how do I use it afterwards?”

In her new role, Kodama is looking forward to deepening her longstanding ties to the community by working closely with contributors on authentic pieces. “Hearing from people, what they see in the community and what they want to write about, is a lot of fun,” she said. She calls up founder Marcus Harrison Green’s piece “How I Survived the Collision of Racism and the Stigma of Mental Illness” as an example of the impact a story can have. “I think it’s so important to have that kind of a story told, because … it’s authentic, and it speaks to something that maybe does not get talked about much,” she said. “For Marcus to have talked about that in such a beautifully authentic and real way that centers the humanity of a person, I think that’s really powerful and it makes a big difference for people and society as a whole.” She also appreciates Susan Fried’s photos that highlight life in the South End, from protests to celebrations. “I think that’s really beautiful too.”