Yuri Kochiyamas’s lifetime of activism
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The date was February 21st. It was a Sunday.
This is the voice of Yuri Kochiyama in an archive recording about the fateful day in 1965 when civil rights activist Malcolm X was assassinated.
Yuri was there when there was a distraction in the audience. And just then the gunfire went off and his hand was up. I remember this. I turned around quickly and the next thing I saw was Malcolm falling back in a dead faint.
Yuri ran up to Malcolm X. And picked up his head and just put it on my lap.
At that moment, someone snapped a photo. Yuri is dressed in all black, kneeling on the ground, her back hunched over Malcolm, her hands holding up his head and her eyes pointed down at his face. And he's in her arms, eyes closed, wounds exposed, white shirt stained with blood. This photo is an enduring image of Yuri Kochiyama. But why was she there? And how did she become an active member of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s and beyond? Today on the show, the story of Yuri Kochiyama and how her experience of Japanese internment during World War II catapulted her into a lifelong fight for social justice and a more just vision of America. That's coming up after a quick break.
December 7th, 1941.
December 7th is a date.
A date which will live.
We won't forget.
In infamy. On December 7th, 1941, at 7.55 a.m., Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. And within hours, Yuri's family, the Nakaharas, got a knock on their door.
Three guys walked in. I didn't know what they were till later though. But it was the FBI. They asked if Mr. Nakahara lived there. I said, oh yeah, but he just came home in the hospital and he's sleeping in the back. He had had a ulcer surgery. They didn't say anything. They just went in the house, went to the back. woke up my father and said, put on your bathrobe and slippers, I guess. And they took him away just like that.
Yuri's father is detained. And this happened to two or three thousand Japanese American immigrant men in particular who were picked up after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
We were calling each other up saying, did anyone come to your house yet? Some of the people said yes, some said no, but they all had heard over the radio that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. So we said, oh my God, we're all going to be in trouble.
Five weeks went by before Yuri was allowed to visit her father. A week later, he was released. But just one day after returning home, he died, perhaps from being moved so soon after his surgery. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, our West Coast became a potential combat zone. Living in that zone were more than 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry. Military authorities therefore determined that all of them would have to move.
What significant event in Yuri Kochiyama's life influenced her activism?
Before long, Yuri, who was 20 years old at this point, along with her family and many other Japanese people, were forced to leave their homes, their fates unknown.
There were some people on the street who had signed saying, we're sorry to see you go, you know, you Japanese go. But there were also people who had signed to say, get out, Japs. The hysteria of war was really high.
The relocation centers are supervised by the War Relocation Authority in unsettled parts of California, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. It helped her to recognize herself as a Japanese American. This is what Yuri says. And to see the strength of the Japanese American community and to survive as not just individuals, but to come together as community.
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