Happy Birthday, Yuri Kochiyama!
Yuri Kochiyama is one of the most renowned Asian American activists of all time. She dedicated her life to fighting for racial justice and human rights.
Born on May 19th 1921, today would have been her 98th birthday. We’re celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month by sharing her historic contributions to Asian Americans and the racial justice movement!
Yuri is widely known for her friendship with Malcolm X and her commitment to Black liberation. When the police and FBI targeted Black activists during the 1950s and 60s, Yuri led letter writing campaigns, prison visits, and demonstrations. She connected her support for incarcerated activists with her own experiences as a Japanese American who was unjustly incarcerated during WWII.
Her work for Black liberation inspired her contributions to the Asian American Movement in the late 1960s and on, when she fought to end U.S. militarism and imperialism in Asia and in Puerto Rico. In the 1980s, she and her husband, Bill Kochiyama, helped organize to win reparations for the over 120,000 Japanese Americans who had lost their homes and livelihoods during their wartime incarceration. The Kochiyamas and the wider Japanese American community fought to get the federal government to apologize and provide compensation to survivors.
Yuri used this victory to call for reparations for slavery. She also spoke out against the post-9/11 criminalization of Muslim, Arab, and South Asian Americans in the U.S.
Yuri Kochiyama believed in sending mail for political outreach and education. She wrote hundreds of letters to political prisoners, students, and friends every month. On holidays, she asked for gifts of stamps so that she could continue to send out flyers for the causes she championed.
We want to honor Yuri’s letter writing and activism by putting her on a U.S. postage stamp.
Tell the United States Postal Service: Honor Yuri Kochiyama’s legacy with a postage stamp!
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