Yuri Kochiyama and Her Pursuit of Freedom for All

“Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another.” - Yuri Kochiyama

Yuri Kochiyama was a human rights and anti-racism activist whose life was dedicated to building bridges between communities and fighting for justice. Her early experiences of her family’s forcible relocation and incarceration during World War II shaped her journey to becoming a vocal advocate for civil rights and was marked by a deep understanding that the fights against racism, imperialism, and inequity are ongoing and interconnected. Over decades of advocacy and community-building, Kochiyama has inspired countless individuals to stand up, speak out, and organize for justice. Her tireless efforts to build coalitions and her commitment to educating herself and others made her a trusted and respected figure in AAPI, Black, and multiracial organizing communities. Even in her later years, she continued to travel the world, encouraging young people to join in solidarity across diverse social movements. Yuri Kochiyama's life is a powerful reminder of the importance of unity and solidarity in the enduring fight against systemic injustice.
 

An Awakening to a Different America

As December 7, 1941 dawned in San Pedro, California, a 20-year-old Yuri Nakahara felt very American—just as she always had. Yuri’s father, Seiichi Nakahara, was a successful fish merchant, and her mother, Tsuyako Nakahara, was a homemaker. She loved her country, she led a comfortable life, and while she was a Nisei and spoke Japanese with her parents in her home, she had only recently started to become aware of the barriers racism might raise as she struggled to enter into the workforce.

But the early morning bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941—an unexpected attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on a US naval base in Oahu, Hawaii—was the beginning of a great shift in Yuri’s awareness of racial politics and American systems of oppression.

Hours after the bombing in Hawaii, Seiichi was asleep in the back of the house—he had just returned from the hospital following surgery for an ulcer. When the FBI knocked on the Nakaharas’ door and asked for Seiichi, there wasn’t an immediate sense of alarm. Yuri freely offered to the unexpected visitors that her father was napping. The federal agents then escorted Seiichi out in his robe and slippers and left no additional information. The shocked family started to call around to neighbors and friends. The news was on the radio: Japan had attacked America. Japanese American families like Yuri’s were all of a sudden very afraid.

Around 3,000 other Japanese Americans were detained in similar ways immediately following Pearl Harbor. Seichi was held in custody for six weeks. The day after he returned home, he died. Whether his death was precipitated by complications from being moved so soon after his surgery or his treatment in detention is unknown.

Soon after, the Nakaharas, along with over 100,000 other Japanese American families, were forced to quickly leave their houses and move to what were euphemistically called “relocation centers.” They were concentration camps, a term that President Roosevelt used himself in internal memos.

Yuri and her family spent two years away from their home, kept against their will at a camp in Jerome, Arkansas. She called her years there a dark time, but her diaries from the era also reveal a young woman focused on the joys people managed to carve out amidst their imprisonment. During her forced time in Jerome she volunteered, had her first real adult political conversations, fell in love, and witnessed the resilience and spirit (including protests in the camp) of her fellow Japanese Americans. She was seeing firsthand the power that exists within community, even among pronounced hardships.

Never one to be left out of doing her part, Yuri recruited fellow young women to start writing letters to Japanese American soldiers abroad. They called themselves the Crusaders. She was inspired to start the Crusaders after her fiance Bill Kochiyama, a fellow Nisei serving in Europe, told Yuri that some people in his regiment had no one back home to correspond with; and since Yuri was writing him three times a day, maybe she could throw some letters the way of the other men on the front. Bill later recalled that the amount of mail he had from Yuri became too bulky to carry in his pack, forcing him to leave behind many of her letters. He said if anyone excavated the battlefields in France, they’d find hundreds of letters penned by Yuri.

Allyship and Community Building

Soon after the war, Yuri moved to BIll Kochiyama’s native New York City, where they immediately wed and settled in midtown Manhattan. Together, they welcomed six children.

Yuri’s first job in New York was serving as a waitress where, for the first time in her life, she worked alongside Black people. As was her hallmark, she chatted with everyone and got to know her new coworkers. A California girl, she started to learn about the policies of the Jim Crow South and other racial struggles of Black communities throughout the United States, and she was horrified. As she immersed herself in her New York life, she was further exposed to the entrenched systemic and structural disadvantages that negatively impact the lives of marginalized groups and began to deepen her engagement with social and political movements.

As the Korean War got underway and American soldiers were once again being sent overseas, Bill and Yuri opened up their home to Japanese American servicemen before they shipped out, offering a sense of community at a time when organized Asian American outreach wasn’t widespread. And the work of community-building and activism just kept expanding from there.

Their growing family necessitated a move in 1960 to a larger space in low-income housing in Harlem. This neighborhood, long famous for its influence on the cultural and political zeitgeist, was a constant source of inspiration and education for Yuri's burgeoning activism. She and Bill opened up their new apartment to community members, just as they had in midtown, creating a space for open dialogue and organizing. They hosted meetings, study groups, and events that brought together people from diverse backgrounds. Their humble abode became a hub for civil rights activities, and Yuri began to build a network of allies and friends who shared her and Bill’s commitment to social justice. She said, "We opened our home to anyone who wanted to talk about change, to anyone who wanted to make a difference."

She threw herself into the growing civil rights movement, even travelling to Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 to see for herself what was happening to southern Black communities. She joined the Harlem Parents Committee, and she participated in non-violent street protests led by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). She brought her children to protests, she organized, and she stayed up late creating protest signs and pamphlets. 

Malcolm X: From the First Meeting to a Famous Farewell

In the fall of 1963 Yuri joined a set of protests demanding jobs for Black and Puerto Rican construction workers who were being kept out of a major neighborhood development job. Along with hundreds of others, Yuri blocked the construction with her body and was eventually arrested. When the case went to trial and Yuri was present at court, Malcolm X happened to walk in.

The majority Black crowd clamored around Malcolm, a fellow Harlem resident and a full blown icon, hoping to shake his hand. Yuri realized she too wanted to shake his hand, but she worried that it wouldn’t be appropriate for an Asian American woman to ask that of him. But she summoned the courage and called out, “Malcolm, can I shake your hand?” He asked her why she wanted to, and she expressed her admiration for what he was doing for his people. Malcolm warmly shook her hand. Yuri also used the moment to tell him she didn’t agree with his anti-integration stance. He suggested she call his secretary and book a meeting if she wanted to learn more about his philosophies.

Yuri took him up on his offer, was invited to join Malcolm’s newly formed Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), and so began her education in liberation studies. For the rest of her life she kept the deeply held belief that her liberation was connected to the liberation of all other people. Of her time with Malcolm X, she expressed great admiration. “I feel that Malcolm did more than anyone else to let me see what’s really happening in the world, and why.”

In June of 1964 Malcolm attended a conversation with a small group of Hiroshima bomb survivors in BIll and Yuri’s home. He spoke to these victims of war about how the violence against them connected to the violence against Black people and the violence countering freedom and human rights all around the world.

On Sunday, February 21, 1965 she and her eldest son Billy attended a speech Malcolm was giving at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights as part of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He spoke of a recent bombing at his house that had put the lives of his very young daughters at risk. All of a sudden a commotion in the back of the room caused a flurry of confusion, and Malcolm X was shot multiple times. Panic ensued and the crowd started to run out. Yuri was terrified, but she stayed behind to comfort Malcolm’s wife, Betty Shabazz. She then went to the stage where Malcolm lay dying and, in an act of friendship and care, she cradled his head as he struggled for air. A photograph of this moment became an iconic image of the era—a Japanese American holding a Black American as he took his last breaths, symbolizing the deep interconnectivity between different civil rights struggles and different people during such a divisive time.

Advocacy, Staunch Anti-Imperialism, and Reparations

Yuri was not without detractors. Her revolutionary view of the world and far-left politics often clashed with general sentiment. In the 1970s and 1980s she turned her attention to the issue of political prisoners. Yuri believed that many who were jailed for political protest were incarcerated unjustly. She worked tirelessly to bring their cases to public attention.

During this time she also supported the Puerto Rican independence movement. When Puerto Rican nationalists occupied the Statue of Liberty in 1977, Yuri joined them. She protested the Vietnam War. And Bill and Yuri enthusiastically joined the call for reparations for Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II. Her efforts, along with those of other activists, contributed to the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided a $20,000 reparation to each surviving internee and an official apology to Japanese Americans who had been imprisoned.

The Legacy of an Upstander

In her later years, Yuri Kochiyama continued to be an active voice for social justice. She began to work in disaster relief, taught English to international students, volunteered, and kept up her advocacy for political prisoners. She inspired countless individuals with her activism and her belief in the power of community and solidarity. Her life story is a powerful reminder of the importance of standing up against injustice and working for a more inclusive and equitable society. Yuri once reflected, "The struggle for justice is never over. We must keep fighting, every day, for a better world."

Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Yuri spoke up for Arab and Muslim Americans who were being profiled and attacked in ways that very much mirrored the treatment she herself faced during World War II. “In war, they say that the first casualty is truth. America forgot that we are American citizens. We Japanese Americans should feel a kinship with the Arab and Muslim people who are the newest targets of racism, hysteria, and jingoism—something that we have experienced too.”

Yuri Kochiyama passed away on June 1, 2014, at the age of 93. Her life is a testament to the power of individual action and collective struggle. Her legacy is a call to do what you can and a reminder that building a more just and equitable world requires the participation of all.

Get to know more about Yuri Kochiyama with the following digital resources:

• NPR: Throughline - “Our Own People”
   
• Kiskadee: “Akemi Kochiyama”
   
• Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project
   
• UCLA Asian American Studies Center: Yuri Kochiyama Digital Exhibit
   
• Columbia University Libraries: Yuri and Bill Kochiyama Papers
   
• Stanford University Libraries: Rise Up for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders - “Yuri Kochiyama”
   
• Women & The American Story: Life Story - Yuri Kochiyama (1921–2014)
   
• The New York Historical: Yuri Kochiyama: Unyielding Voice for Justice
   
• National Park Service: Yuri Kochiyama
   
• Thirteen PBS: Yuri Kochiyama: An Icon of Solidarity Work