Jump to content

Yuri Kochiyama

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by NPalgan (talk | contribs) at 04:32, 19 May 2016 (→Activist work). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Yuri Kochiyama
Kochiyama at an anti-war demonstration Central Park around 1968.
Born
Mary Yuriko Nakahara

(1921-05-19)May 19, 1921
San Pedro, California
DiedJune 1, 2014(2014-06-01) (aged 93)
Berkeley, California
OccupationActivist

Yuri Kochiyama (河内山 百合, Kōchiyama Yuri, May 19, 1921 – June 1, 2014) was a Japanese American human rights activist.

Early life

Mary Yuriko Nakahara was born on May 19, 1921 in San Pedro, California to Japanese immigrants Seiichi Nakahara, a fishmerchant entrepreneur, and Tsuyako Nakahara, a college-educated homemaker and piano teacher. She had a twin brother, Peter, and an older brother, Arthur (AKA Art). Her family was relatively affluent and she grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood. In her youth she attended a Presbyterian church and taught Sunday school. Kochiyama attended San Pedro High School, where she served as the first female student body officer, wrote for the school newspaper, and played on the tennis team. She graduated from high school in 1939. She attended Compton Junior College, where she studied English, journalism, and art. Kochiyama graduated from Compton in 1941.[1]

Her life changed on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbor. She was unaware of this event while she was teaching at church. Soon after the bombings, the Federal Bureau of Investigation,[2] barged into her home looking for her father. Within a matter of minutes, the three men took her father away as he was considered a "suspect" who could threaten national security. The event happened so quickly she was unable to question their actions. Her father was sick to begin with and he was just released from the hospital when the FBI arrested him. While her father was in federal prison he was denied medical care, and by the time he was released on January 20, 1942, he had become too sick to speak. Her father died the day after his release.[1]

Soon after the death of her father, the United States government ordered the forced removal of approximately 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific coast. Yuri, her mother, and brother were "evacuated" to a converted horse stable at the Santa Anita Assembly Center for several months and then moved again to the War Relocation Authority internment camp at Jerome, Arkansas, where they lived for the next three years. While interned, she met her future husband, Bill Kochiyama, a Nisei soldier fighting for the United States. The couple was married in 1946.[1] They then moved to New York in 1948, had six children and lived in public housing for the next twelve years.

Activist work

In 1960, Kochiyama and her husband Bill moved their family to Harlem in New York City and joined the Harlem Parents Committee and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). She became acquainted with Malcolm X and was a member of his Pan-Africanist Organization of Afro-American Unity, following his departure from the Nation of Islam. She was present at his assassination on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, and held him in her arms as he lay dying. [3] A famous photo appeared in Life magazine capturing that moment.

In 1977, Kochiyama joined the group of Puerto Ricans who took over the Statue of Liberty to draw attention to the struggle for Puerto Rican independence. Kochiyama and other activists demanded the release of five Puerto Rican nationalists convicted of attempted murder, Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero, and Irving Flores Rodríguez who in 1954 had opened fire in the House of Representatives, injuring five congressmen. According to Kochiyama, despite a strong movement enabling them to occupy the statue for nine hours, they intended to "give up peacefully when the police came." The five Puerto Ricans were eventually released.

Kochiyama also became a mentor during the Asian American movement that grew during and after the Vietnam War protests. Many young activists came to her for support for several of the Asian American protests. Due to her civil rights experience, Yuri and Bill -- along with several Japanese American organizations on the east coast and west coast -- advocated for reparations and a government apology for injustices toward Japanese Americans during the internment. President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act in 1988 which, among other things, awarded $20,000 to each Japanese American internment survivor. In later years, Yuri and many other Japanese Americans continued to raise consciousness about Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asians who were also being unfairly targeted and profiled, similar to the experience of Japanese Americans during World War II.

In 2005, Kochiyama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize through the “1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005” project.[4] Yuri spoke at over 100 high schools and colleges in at least 15 states and Canada, including Harvard, Radcliffe, Yale, Princeton, Spelman, Temple, UMass/Amherst, New York University, UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University. In 2010, she received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from California State University, East Bay.

Over the years, Kochiyama had dedicated herself to various causes, such as the rights of political prisoners, working on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an African-American activist convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, nuclear disarmament, and reparations for the Internment of Japanese Americans. In a lifetime of community service starting in her hometown of San Pedro, California, Yuri also taught English to immigrant students and volunteered at soup kitchens and homeless shelters in New York City. Through her activism starting in the 1960's through the mid-2000's, Yuri participated in the Black, Asian American and Third World movements for civil rights, human rights, Black liberation, political prisoners, ethnic studies, anti-war and other social justice issues.

Kochigama also travelled to Peru to gather support for Abimael Guzman, leader of the Shining Path, which is classified by the Peruvian government, the U.S., the European Union, and Canada as a terrorist organization.[5]

In Debbie Allen’s television series “Cool Women” (2001), Yuri stated, “The legacy I would like to leave is that people try to build bridges and not walls.”

Media

  • Kochiyama appeared as herself in the TV movie Death of a Prophet — The Last Days of Malcolm X in 1981.
  • Kochiyama appeared in the 12 award winning documentary, "All Power to the People!" (1996), by Chinese-Jamaican-American filmmaker Lee Lew-Lee for ZDF-Arte, broadcast in 21 nations and the U.S. between 1996-2001
  • Kochiyama was the subject of the documentary film, Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice (1999), from Japanese American filmmaker Rea Tajiri and African American filmmaker Pat Saunders.
  • Kochiyama and her husband, Bill Kochiyama, were featured in the documentary, My America...or Honk if You Love Buddha by the Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña.
  • Kochiyama is the subject of a documentary film with Angela Davis called Mountains That Take Wing[6] (2010) by C.A. Griffith & L.T. Quan.[6][7]
  • Kochiyama's speeches were published in Discover Your Mission: Selected Speeches & Writings of Yuri Kochiyama (1998), by Russell Muranaka.
  • Kochiyama is the subject of a play, Yuri and Malcolm X, by Japanese American playwright, Tim Toyama.
  • Kochiyama is the subject of the play Bits of Paradise by Marlan Warren (showcased at The Marsh Theater, San Francisco, 2008), as well as a documentary currently in production, Bits of Paradise: Missives of Hope which focuses on the letter-writing campaign led by Kochiyama during her internment (Producer: Marlan Warren).
  • Kochiyama is mentioned in the Blue Scholars' album Bayani on the title track and has a track titled in her honor in their 2011 album Cinemetropolis.

References

  1. ^ a b c Fujino, Diane C. (3 June 2014). "Yuri Kochiyama". Densho Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
  2. ^ Fujino, Diane Carol. Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revoluationary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. p. xv. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  3. ^ Wang, Hansi Lo (19 August 2013). "Not Just A 'Black Thing': An Asian-American's Bond With Malcolm X". National Public Radio. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
  4. ^ Selby, Jenn (June 2, 2014), "Yuri Kochiyama dead: Japanese American human rights activist and close Malcolm X ally dies aged 93", The Independent
  5. ^ Diane Carol Fujino (2005). Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. U of Minnesota Press. pp. 372–. ISBN 978-0-8166-4593-0.
  6. ^ a b "Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama - A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation (2010)". IMDb. 17 June 2010.
  7. ^ "WOMEN MAKE MOVIES - Mountains that Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation". wmm.com.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yuri_Kochiyama&oldid=720992903"