Yuri Kochiyama was a radical Japanese-American liberation activist and a pioneer of the intersectionality movement. Born in California to Japanese immigrants in 1921, Yuri lived what she felt was an “all American childhood”. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor her life would drastically change; Yuri’s father was arrested by the FBI, accused of being a “threat to national security”, was detained for six weeks and died just days after his release. Yuri, her mother and brother were some of the many U.S. citizens of Japanese descent to be held in incarceration camps; it was in the camps where Yuri developed a deep pride in her Japanese heritage and the experience sparked her passion for activism. She married Bill Kochiyama and they had six children; Yuri and Bill moved to New York City with their children and lived in housing projects surrounded by Black and Latino communities. Yuri advocated for safer streets and integrated schools, this led her to dig deep into the histories of Black Americans and Puerto Ricans. Yuri’s daughter remembers piles of radical leaflets all over the dinner table and her mother taping political newspaper clippings to the walls of their home—she said that their home “felt like ‘the movement’ 24/7.”
Learn more here
Comments (1)