Author’s Note (from “Bridges”)

As we celebrate the launch of The Bridges Yuri Built, I want to share my author’s note from the book. This is a short tribute, just a piece of a much grander portrait, but one that I hope provides some context and color to describe the extraordinary person that Yuri was. Rest in power, Grandma Yuri - we will love you and honor you forever!

Growing up in the Kochiyama family, I often had the sense my great-grandmother was known and loved by many, but I didn’t become aware of the extent of her activism, or her significance as a figure, until she passed away. In fact, it was at her memorial service in Harlem that I can first recall realizing the breadth of her impact. When Angela Davis took the stage to pay tribute, she called Yuri “the person who can really change the world.” Those words sparked a deep curiosity that continues to live within me to this day - I wanted to know why she was that person. What made Grandma Yuri so special?

As an activist, Yuri is distinguished for a few particular qualities of her praxis and her personality. She was a committed storekeeper of information and an avid documentarian who photographed every action, kept records of every person she met, and preserved every correspondence over decades of work. She is also known for the scope and depth of her beliefs, her commitment to seeking revolution. To have undergone such a drastic transformation - from her patriotic and apolitical upbringing to radical anti-racist, anti-imperialist ideology in adulthood - indicated that she was a true believer in the causes she supported and that her consciousness was constantly evolving with new understanding. She was steadfast in her values, but open to change within her own beliefs. And most notably, she was invested in the pursuit of liberation for all oppressed peoples, and her advocacy was never limited to challenging the racism she experienced as an Asian American woman, but extended to all kinds of communities. For Yuri, solidarity was not an ideal but an embodied, necessary practice.

Throughout her life, Yuri supported many movements. She was affiliated with the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, the Republic of New Africa, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Congress of Racial Equality, amongst countless other organizations. She personally supported and advocated on behalf of political prisoners, including Mtayari Shabaka Sundiata, Yu Kikumura, Marilyn Buck, Lolita Lebron, Leonard Peltier and Assata Shakur. Actions drew her across the country and the world, from riding in a U-Haul truck to Mississippi with citizens of the Republic of New Africa in 1971 to participating in the 1977 takeover of the Statue of Liberty with Puerto Rican Independentistas to demand the release of prisoner Andre Cordero, to traveling to Cuba with Venceremos Brigade in 1987 to visiting Peru, Japan and the Philippines in the early nineties on human rights missions.

She was a critical advisor in the Asian American movement, and, alongside her husband Bill, helped organize for reparations for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. When President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act in 1988 which granted $20,000 to each Japanese American internment survivors, Yuri cited the act to advocate for reparations for African American descendents of enslaved people. And she continued to reference Japanese American experiences during WWII when speaking out against racial profiling towards Muslims, South Asians and Middle Easterners in the United States post 9/11. Making connections between movements and identifying common sources of oppression remained a crucial component of her work until the end of her life.

When I meet people who knew Yuri, and even those who only encountered her once, I am struck by how often they repeat the same sentiments. They tell me she made them feel heard and cared for, that she always remembered them, that she received them with kindness, respect and genuine interest. Yuri’s ability to personally connect with people from all walks of life and to bring communities together, despite differences, to achieve common goals is part of what makes her such a beloved and unique figure. Those connections are the bridges Yuri built, and the legacy that she leaves behind.