05/20/2026
Born in 1921, Yuri Kochiyama was a Japanese American political and civil rights activist who spoke out about oppressive institutions and injustice in the US for over 50 years. Her activism supported the liberation and empowerment of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Puerto Ricans. She also advocated for nuclear disarmament, reparations for Japanese American incarcerees, and the release of prisoners whom she regarded as prisoners of conscience.
During World War II, the U.S. government forcibly removed Kochiyama and her family to an incarceration site in Jerome, AR, where they were confined for most of the war. In her diary, Kochiyama maintained a positive outlook, but also described the anger of other incarcerees and her exposure to racism.
In 1944, Kochiyama volunteered to work at an all-Japanese, segregated United Service Organizations (USO) Center in Hattiesburg, MS, so that she could get out of the incarceration site in Jerome. There she met her husband, Bill, who was also incarcerated as a Japanese American.
The couple would eventually move to Harlem, New York, which exposed them to the Black and Puerto Rican communities’ struggles for freedom and sparked Kochiyama’s interest in civil rights activism. Kochiyama's apartment in Harlem became a crossroads for activists, artists, and intellectuals.
After meeting Malcolm X in 1963, she embraced his viewpoint of "human rights" rather than civil rights and developed an internationalist and anti-imperialist view, linking the freedom struggles of Black people in America with the experiences of people of African and Asian descent all over the world. She also advocated for Puerto Rican self-determination and joined the Asian American Movement during this time.
Kochiyama continued her grassroots activism throughout her life. In the 1990s, she formed prisoner support groups for Asian American prisoners, and eventually moved to Oakland to work more closely with West Coast activists. In recent years, her renown has increased in the wake of anti-Asian violence during the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Photo courtesy of the Kochiyama family/UCLA Asian American Studies Center
