TIMELINE

Early Life

• 1936: Born July 5 in Venice California, to Harukichi George Nakamura and Kimiko Mary Nitao

• Father worked as a gardener and couple owned a produce market in Los Feliz

• 1941:  At age six, he and his parents were forcibly incarcerated at Manzanar, one of 10 concentration camps for Japanese and Japanese Americans during WWII

• Nakamura’s brother, Norman Noboru Nakamura, was born in Manzanar

• 1945: Family released from camp and moved to Denver Colorado

Post-War

• 1949: returned to Atwater neighborhood in Los Angeles, since produce market was lost, his father returned to gardening work and Nakamura worked with him on Saturdays throughout Junior and Senior High School

• 1951-1954: At Marshall High School, he played football, was into forensics specializing in humorous interpretation and was a photographer and  editor of the school newspaper.

• 1954: Awarded a 4 year journalism scholarship at Pepperdine University, along with a job as a copy boy at the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper

• Repudiating the mandatory early morning daily chapel requirement, he quit college but kept the job at the Examiner and moved into a SRO in downtown L.A.

• 1955: Attended Art Center College of Design, eventually graduating with a B.F.A. in photojournalism 

Photographic Career

• 1957-1963: Freelance Photojournalist

• 1959-1961:Taught photography through the Signal Corps Photo School in Germany

• One of his photographs was selected for the cover of Life Magazine, but replaced with portrait of Ernest Hemingway when he committed suicide

• 1961-1963: Photographer,  Charles Eames Studio

• 1964-1966: Partner, Paxton-Nakamura Studio 

• 1966-1970: Color Print Analyst, MacGalliard Color Lab

• 1968-1970: Photographer, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Social Activism

• 1969: Volunteered as photographer at Gidra, Newspaper of the Asian American Movement. 

• Documented first Pilgrimage to Manzanar, first time he returned since being incarcerated 1941-1945

• 1970-1975:  M.F.A.student at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television

• 1970, founded Visual Communications, Asian American Studies Central, Inc.  first and longest-running Asian American media arts organization in country

Filmmaking and Teaching Career

• 1971: Manzanar 

• Featured in “Scratching the Belly of the Beast: Cutting Edge Media in Los Angeles, 1922-1994, Film Forum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1994

• Featured in “Documentary Matters: A History of Modern Documentary Film,” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1995

• 1972: Producer, Chinatown 2-Step, Cruisin’ J-Town, To Be Me: Tony Quon, Visual Communications

• 1973: Cinematographer, Pieces of a Dream, Visual Communications

• 1975: Wataridori: Birds of Passage, Visual Communications

• 1975-1978: Photography Instructor, San Diego City College

• 1978-2004: Assistant, Associate, Full Professor UCLA Department of Film, Television and Asian American Studies

• 1980: Hito Hata: Raise the Banner (co-director, co-writer), Visual Communications

• 1983: Fool’s Dance, Generation Films

• 1985: Conversations: Before the War/After the War,  Generation Films

• 1992: Through Our Own Eyes, Moving Memories, Japanese American National Museum 

• 1993-2011: Associate Director, UCLA Asian American Studies Center

• 1994 Something Strong Within, Japanese American National Museum 

• 1994 the Asian Pacific American Coalition in Cinema, Theatre & Television of UCLA instituted the "Robert A. Nakamura Award" to recognize outstanding contributions of Asian Pacific American visual artists

• 1995 Looking Like the Enemy, Japanese American National Museum 

• 1996: Founded the UCLA Center for EthnoCommunications 

• 1997: Smithsonian Institution retrospective of his work

• 1997: Created the Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in Los Angeles.

• 1997: Mixed Plate: Japanese Americans in Multicultural Hawai’i, Plantation Roots, From Bullets to Ballots, The Politics of Plate Lunch, Japanese American National Museum

• 1998: Featured in Asian America Through the Lens: History, Representations and Identity (Jun Xing, Altamira Press)

• 1998: Executive Producer, Aftereffects, Japanese American National Museum 

• 1999: Named UCLA Alumni and Friends of Japanese Ancestry Endowed Chair

• 1999: Executive Producer, J-Town Rhapsody, Japanese American National Museum 

• 1999: Named Top 100 Producers of 1999, AV Video Multimedia Producer Magazine

• 2000: Eye to Eye: Asian Pacific American Arts and Artists, UCLA Center for EthnoCommunications

• 2000: Executive Producer, The Bracelet, Dear Miss Breed, Interactions, Crossover, Top of Their Game, Japanese American National Museum

• 2001: Featured in Out of the Shadows Asians in American Cinema (Roger Garcia, editor, Olivares)

• 2001: Executive Producer, Harsh Canvas: The Art and Life of Henry Sugimoto, Japanese American National Museum

• 2001: Distinguished Artist, 5th Annaul C.O.L.A (City of Los Angeles) Arts Exhibition

• 2002: Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray

• Official Sundance selection

• Best Documentary Short, Newport Beach Film Festival, Savannah Film & Video Festival, Florida Film Festival, CINE Golden Eagle

• 2002:  Executive Producer, Words, Weavings and Songs, Japanese American National Museum

• 2003: Featured in The Sons and Daughters of Los: Culture and Community in LA (David James, Temple University Press) 

• 2004: Executive Producer, 9066 to 9/11, Japanese American National Museum

• 2011: Featured in Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1962-1980 (Kellie Jones, Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles) 

• 2013: Retired UCLA

• 2016: Nakamura and wife Karen Ishizuka awarded the Japanese American National Museum’s Inaugural Legacy Award 

• 2018: featured in Los Angeles Documentary and the Production of Public History, 1958-1977  (Joshua Glick, University of California Press)

Family

• Married to Karen L. Ishizuka (1978)

• Two children: Thai Binh Checel (1974) and Tadashi Harukichi Nakamura (1980)

• Four grandchildren: Mina Loy Akira Checel, Gus Ishizuka Checel, Paulo Akira Sangalang Nakamura, and Malaya Tomiko Sangalang Nakamura