Yuri Kochiyamaʻs Legacy of Black/AAPI Solidarity

Yuri Kochiyama was a lifelong political activist who supported a wide range of social justice and human rights movements more than fifty years, including the civil rights and antiwar movements and the fight for fight for ethnic studies, the anti-apartheid movement, the struggle for Puerto Rican independence, reparations for Japanese Americans, African Americans and Native Americans, the rights of political prisoners in the United States, nuclear disarmament, and movements for racial and economic justice and sovereignty all over the world.

Joining us to discuss her legacy and share was her granddaughter Akemi Kochiyama, co-coordinator of the Yuri Kochiyama Archives Project and co-editor of Passing It On: A Memoir by Yuri Kochiyama (2004, UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press). 

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Learn more about Yuri:

• Video on Yuri Kochiyama (produced by Tadashi Nakamura for Oakland memorial by Kochiyama family 2014); music by Blue Scholars (4 min)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkhFjoDrtZs
  
• Film:  My America: Honk if You Love Buddha (directed by Renee Tajima-Pena) - segment on Yuri and Bill Kochiyama (9 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApSa2_SW9rw 
  
• Video on Yuri Kochiyama (produced by Ling Woo Liu for Korematsu Institute) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irUOrXkzoBg 
  
• Film: Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama (directed by C.A. Griffith & H.L.T. Quan, 2009) https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/mountains-that-take-wing-angela-davis-and-yuri-kochiyama-trailer/
  
• Video: Reading from Yuri’s journal by actress Sandra Oh - "Voices of a People's History of the U.S". - Howard Zinn - 10/5/05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApXSv6845cU
  
• Video: Ladies of Awesome (posted by Knowledgeable Reaction)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O64kET4y_oc
  
• Film: Passion for Justice (directed by Rea Tajiri & Pat Saunders, 1999)  www.wmm.com/catalog/film/yuri-kochiyama-passion-for-justice/
  
• Decolonize This Place:   https://decolonizethisplace.org/
  
• Hypen Magazine: Yuri, Tupac, and a Harlem House https://hyphenmagazine.com/blog/2014/8/28/yuri-tupac-and-harlem-house hyphenmagazine.com/blog/2014/8/28/yuri-tupac-and-harlem-house