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Yuri Kochiyama
Kochiyama at Central Park anti-war demonstration circa 1968
Born	Mary Yuriko Nakahara (1921-05-19)May 19, 1921 San Pedro, California, U.S.
Died	June 1, 2014(2014-06-01) (aged 93) Berkeley, California, U.S.
Occupation	Activist
Children	6

Yuri Kochiyama (河内山 百合, Kōchiyama Yuri, May 19, 1921 – June 1, 2014) was a Japanese American human rights activist.. She is notable as one of the few prominent non-black supporters of Black supremacy. Influenced by Marxism, Maoism, and the thoughts of Malcolm X, she was an advocate for many revolutionary movements.

Early life

Mary Yuriko Nakahara was born on May 19, 1921 in San Pedro, California to Japanese immigrants Seiichi Nakahara, a fish merchant entrepreneur, and Tsuyako Nakahara, a college-educated homemaker and piano teacher. She had a twin brother, Peter, and an older brother, Arthur. 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..

Her life changed on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbor. Soon after she returned home from church, FBI agents arrested her father as a potential threat to national security. He was in poor health, having just come out of the hospital. 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.

Soon after the death of her father, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the forced removal of approximately 120,000 people 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 concentration 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 married in 1946. Then, they moved to New York in 1948, had six children, and lived in public housing for the next twelve years. In 1960, Kochiyama and her husband Bill moved their family to Harlem and joined the Harlem Parents Committee and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

Activist work

Kochiyama became acquainted with human rights activist Malcolm X in October 1963 during a protest against the arrest of about 600 minority construction workers in Brooklyn, who had been protesting for jobs at the Down State Medical Center site . Malcolm X was then a member of the Nation of Islam, and Kochiyama was a member of his Pan-Africanist Organization of Afro-American Unity. 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. A famous photo appeared in Life magazine capturing that moment. Kochiyama in the mid-1960s joined the Revolutionary Action Movement, a clandestine revolutionary nationalist organization which was one of the first organizations in the black liberation movement to attempt to construct a revolutionary nationalism based on a synthesis of the thought of Malcolm X, Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tse Tung. She was one of the few non-blacks invited to join the Republic of New Africa (RNA), established in 1968 and which advocated the establishment of a separate black nation in the U.S South.

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 four 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. Yuri also had close relationships with many other revolutionary nationalist leaders including Robert F. Williams (who gave Yuri her first Red Book of quotations by Mao Zedong).

Kochiyama 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, Kochiyama was active in opposing the profiling and bigotry toward Muslims, Middle Easterners, and South Asians in the United States, a phenomenon many view as similar to the experience of Japanese Americans during World War II.

In 1971, Kochiyama secretly converted to Sunni Islam, and began travelling to the Sankore mosque in Greenhaven prison, Stormville, New York, to study and worship with Imam Rasul Suleiman.

Over the years, Kochiyama dedicated herself to various causes, such as the rights of those she regarded as political prisoners. She worked on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an African-American activist 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. Through her activism—starting in the 1960s and continuing into the mid-2000s—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.

Kochiyama was a friend and supporter of Assata Shakur, an African-American activist and member of the former Black Liberation Army (BLA), who has been convicted of several crimes including first-degree murder before escaping from U.S. prison and receiving asylum in Cuba. She stated that to her Shakur was like "the female Malcolm or the female Mumia ."

Kochiyama 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 and has been widely condemned for its brutality, including violence deployed against peasants, trade union organizers, popularly elected officials and the general civilian population. Kochiyama stated "he more I read, the more I came to completely support the revolution in Peru."

Kochiyama also supported Yu Kikumura, an alleged member of the Japanese Red Army, who was arrested in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam in 1986 when he was found carrying a bomb in his luggage and subsequently convicted of planning to bomb a US Navy recruitment office in the Veteran's Administration building. Kochiyama felt Kikumura's 30-year sentence was motivated by his political activism.

As part of her support for those she saw as political prisoners, Kochiyama visited in prison Marilyn Buck, a feminist poet, who was imprisoned for her participation in the 1979 prison escape of Assata Shakur, the 1981 Brink's robbery and the 1983 U.S. Senate bombing.

In 2005, Kochiyama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize through the “1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005” project. 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. 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, and San Francisco State University. In 2010, she received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from California State University, East Bay. 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.” despite her support of violence and terrorism.

In response to the United States' actions following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Kochiyama stated that "it's important we all understand that the main terrorist and the main enemy of the world's people is the U.S. government" and that "the goal of the war is more than just getting oil and fuel. The United States is intent on taking over the world."

Further reading

• Schatz, Kate; Klein Stahl, Miriam (2015). Rad American Women A-Z. San Francisco, CA: City Lights/Sister Spit. ISBN 978-0-87286-683-6.

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 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 (2010) by C.A. Griffith & L.T. Quan.
• 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.
• On May 19, 2016, Google Doodle in the U.S. honored the 95th anniversary of Yuri Kochiyama's birthday.

References

1. Selby, Jenn (June 2, 2014), "Yuri Kochiyama dead: Japanese American human rights activist, revolutionary, racist, and close Malcolm X ally dies aged 93", The Independent
2. ^ Fujino, Diane C. (3 June 2014). "Yuri Kochiyama". Densho Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
3. Fujino, Diane Carol. Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. p. xv-xxi. Retrieved 19 May 2016.
4. Yuri Kochiyama (1994). "The Impact of Malcolm X on Asian-American Politics and Activism". Blacks, Latinos, and Asians in Urban America: Status and Prospects for Politics and Activism (PDF). pp. 129–141.
5. James Jennings (1994). Blacks, Latinos, and Asians in Urban America: Status and Prospects for Politics and Activism. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 131–. ISBN 978-0-275-94934-1.
6. 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.
7. Cosgrove, Ben (June 2, 2014). "Yuri Kochiyama, at Malcolm X's Side When He Died, Is Dead at 93". Time. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
8. Fred Ho; Bill V. Mullen (25 June 2008). Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political and Cultural Connections Between African Americans and Asian Americans. Duke University Press. p. 183. ISBN 0-8223-4281-2.
9. "In Memory of Yuri Kochiyama, 1921-2014 With Justice in Her Heart... All of Her Life", Revolution, June 9, 2014
10. Diane Carol Fujino (2005). Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. U of Minnesota Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-8166-4593-0.
11. Diane Carol Fujino (2005). Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. U of Minnesota Press. pp. 206–. ISBN 978-0-8166-4593-0.
12. Diane Carol Fujino (2005). Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. U of Minnesota Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-8166-4593-0.
13. 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.
14. "Shining-Path", Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved June 11, 2009
15. "Final Report". cverdad.org.pe. Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Retrieved January 13, 2008.
16. Diane Carol Fujino (2005). Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. U of Minnesota Press. p. 282. ISBN 978-0-8166-4593-0.
17. Diane Carol Fujino (2005). Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. U of Minnesota Press. p. 311. ISBN 978-0-8166-4593-0.
18. Selby, Jenn (June 2, 2014), "Yuri Kochiyama dead: Japanese American human rights activist and close Malcolm X ally dies aged 93", The Independent
19. Diane Carol Fujino (2005). Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. U of Minnesota Press. p. 310. ISBN 978-0-8166-4593-0.
20. ^ "Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama - A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation (2010)". IMDb. 17 June 2010.
21. "Women Make Movies - Mountains that Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation". wmm.com.
22. "Yuri Kochiyama's 95th Birthday". google.com. Retrieved 19 May 2016.

External links

• National Women's History Project about Kochiyama
• "The Last Revolutionary", by Melissa Hung from the East Bay Express
• Civil Rights Activist Yuri Kochiyama Remembers Her Life, the Day of Malcolm X’s Assassination to Her Internment in a WWII Japanese-American Detention Camp from Democracy Now!
• Yuri Kochiyama in the Freedom Fighters trailer on YouTube
• Bits of Paradise play about Yuri Kochiyama on YouTube
• Documentary in production about Yuri Kochiayama's Crusaders
• "Yuri Kochiyama" by Diane C. Fujino from Densho Encyclopedia
• "Mountains That Take Wing" on YouTube
• Selby, Jenn (June 2, 2014), "Yuri Kochiyama dead: Japanese American human rights activist and close Malcolm X ally dies aged 93", The Independent
• "Remembering Yuri Kochiyama". KPFA. June 5, 2014.

• 1921 births
• 2014 deaths
• American activists
• American Sunni Muslims
• American human rights activists
• Converts to Sunni Islam
• American people of Japanese descent
• Japanese-American civil rights activists
• Japanese-American internees
• Asian-American movement activists
• American anti–nuclear weapons activists
• People from San Pedro, Los Angeles
• American women activists