May 19, 1921
Mary Yuriko Nakahara is born in San Pedro, California.
The Nakahara family in San Pedro circa 1924.December 7, 1941
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor; Yuri’s father Seiichi Nakahara is unjustly arrested and detained by the FBI.
The Nakahara family circa 1938.January 21, 1942
Yuri’s father passes away in their home, just one day after his release from FBI custody.
February 19, 1942
Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, forcibly evacuating and interning 120,000 Japanese Americans.
October 16, 1942
Yuri and her family are transferred from the Santa Anita Assembly Center to the Jerome War Relocation Center in Jerome, Arkansas, where they will be interned until the war ends in 1945.
Yuri at internment camp.November 20, 1943
Yuri meets Pvt. Bill Kochiyama in Hattiesburg, Mississippi at Camp Shelby.
Bill Kochiyama in uniform circa 1944.February 9, 1946
Bill and Yuri marry and settle in Bill’s hometown of New York City.
Bill and Yuri Kochiyama circa 1946.May 1, 1947
Bill and Yuri’s first child, William (Billy), is born. Over the next 12 years, Yuri and Bill have 5 more children (Audee, Aichi, Eddie, Jimmy, Tommy) while living at the Amsterdam Housing Projects on 63rd Street and Amsterdam in New York.
Yuri and Billy Kochiyama.1951
Yuri and Bill co-found the Nisei Service Organization (NSO), which later became the Nisei Sino Service Organization (NSSO) to include both Japanese American and Chinese American veterans. With the NSSO, Yuri and Bill start their Saturday night “open house” in their home.
1958
Yuri briefly meets civil rights leader Daisy Bates, the President of the Arkansas NAACP and a key figure in the Little Rock 9 case, exposing her to the civil rights movement.
December 1960
Bill, Yuri, and their 6 children move into the Manhattanville Houses on 126th Street in Harlem, across the street from Bill’s childhood home.
Jimmy, Aichi, Tommy, Billy, Audee, Grandpa Kochiyama, and Eddie circa 1959.1960s to 1980s
Bill and Yuri continue their Saturday night “open house.” Over the years their guests transition from international visitors, actors, and local New York friends, to activists and artists involved with civil rights, Black liberation and other social movements.
October 16, 1963
Yuri meets Malcolm X at the Downstate Hospital protest arrest hearing and soon after joins his organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).
Yuri's OAAU membership card.1963
Yuri begins her formal education in Black Liberation; over the next 10 years, she is an engaged student/member in a number of community-based committees and schools including:
• Harlem Parents Committee
• Harlem Freedom School
• Organization of Afro American Unity
• Amiri Baraka Black Arts School
• Free University
• Nation Building Classes
June 6, 1964
Malcolm X visits Yuri’s home to meet with a group of Japanese reporters from the Hiroshima Nagasaki Peace Study Mission.
Malcolm X at the Kochiyama house.February 21, 1965
Yuri and her son Billy Kochiyama witness the assassination of Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom.
Life Magazine photograph of Yuri holding Malcolm X after his assassination.1965 to 1973
Yuri is deeply engaged in numerous overlapping/intersecting BIPOC movements – the Asian American movement, reparations (for Black people, Native Americans, Japanese, and Latinx Americans), Black arts and Black nationalism, and in organizing support for political prisoners and their families. Below are some, but not all, of the organizations she worked with at this time:
• Asian Americans for Action
• Republic of New Africa
• New Afrikan People’s Organization
• Black Panther Party
• Young Lords
• National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners
• Japanese Americans Redress & Reparations Committee
• United Front (Against U.S. Terrorism)
Mid 1970s to 1980s
Yuri expands her activism to include anti-imperialist/Third World liberation and human rights movements and struggles; she joins movements against apartheid in South Africa, in support of Native American and Hawaiian sovereignty, a Palestinian homeland, independence for Puerto Rico and in solidarity with Cuba and against all U.S. interventions abroad.
October 15, 1975
Yuri and Bill’s eldest child, Billy Kochiyama, passes away at age 28.
October 25, 1977
Yuri is arrested for participating in the takeover of the Statue of Liberty in support of Puerto Rican nationalists.
Newspaper clipping.1988
At the age of 67, Yuri visits Cuba as part of the 19th Venceremos Brigade, describing it as “a golden opportunity to work, study, and learn about global liberation struggles and socialism in Cuba.”
November 19, 1989
Bill and Yuri’s daughter, Aichi Kochiyama, passes away at the age of 37.
Aichi Kochiyama, third from right, with friends and family circa 1969.1992
Yuri and Bill co-found the David Wong Support Committee in New York to support a Chinese national incarcerated in New York State.
October 25, 1993
Bill Kochiyama, Yuri’s partner of 47 years, passes away.
Yuri and Bill Kochiyama together circa.Mid 1990s
Yuri visits over 100 high schools and colleges spanning more than 15 states (and Canada), speaking about the Asian American movement, Malcolm X, the history of solidarity and coalition building between Blacks and Asians and other communities, US foreign policy and other related topics.
Yuri receives numerous awards including:
• New York State Governor’s Award for - Outstanding Asian American (1994)
• Frederick Douglass Award from North Star Fund (1994)
• Charles Bannerman Memorial Fellowship (1994)
• Dean’s Medal from CUNY School of Law, Queens College (1996)
• Japanese American of the Biennium from Japanese American Citizens League (1996)
Yuri Kochiyama at a speaking engagement.1998
The Life and Times of Yuri Kochiyama, as told to Mayumi Nakazawa, is published in Japanese (Bungei Shunju).
1999
Yuri relocates to Oakland, California and continues to organize, speak and work with young activists.
2001
Yuri is featured in “Cool Women” television series directed by Debbie Allen.
2002
Yuri co-founds the Asian Prisoner Support Committee (APSC) in Oakland, California.
2004
Yuri’s memoir, Passing it On: A Memoir by Yuri Kochiyama (2004) wins the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding Book Award.
2004
Yuri receives an Honorary Degree from Wesleyan University.
2005
Yuri Kochiyama is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the “1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005” Project.
2005
Diane Carol Fujino publishes the biography “Heartbeat of the Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama” (University of Minnesota).
May 21, 2009
Yuri celebrates her 88th birthday with family and friends in San Francisco.
Yuri Kochiyama surrounded by her family and friends.June 2010
Yuri receives an Honorary Doctorate Degree from California State University, East Bay.
2011
Blue Scholars release their song, “Yuri Kochiyama.”
June 1, 2014
Yuri becomes an ancestor at the age of 93.
