Marie Okuma Johnston was born in Kokurakita Ward, Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. At the age of four, their family moved from Japan to Spokane, Washington. Three years later, their parents began arranging opportunities to be able to visit home and attend elementary school in Japan every summer. When Marie first visited their Baachan (Japanese grandmother), they had no recollection of their time in Japan nor could they remember how to speak Japanese. However, three months later, they came back to the United States being able to speak and think in two languages at the same time.

This narrative is the foundation to who Marie is as an artist and creator. It was from that first visit back to Japan that she began to realize something wonderful about themselves, that they are Japanese American. They now celebrates their Japanese American identity through their social justice work as a higher education practitioner, committee member of the Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee, and through opportunities to engage in creative art projects.