Object Details
- Artist
- Corky Lee, 5 Sep 1947 - 27 Jan 2021
- Sitter
- Yuri Kochiyama, 21 May 1921 - 1 Jun 2014
- Exhibition Label
- Born San Pedro, California
- For more than four decades, Yuri Kochiyama championed progressive causes. “I didn’t wake up and decide to become an activist,” she recalled in 2004. “But you couldn’t help notice the inequities, the injustices. [They were] all around you.”
- During World War II, Kochiyama was among more than 125,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated in internment camps across the United States. Her grassroots activism began in the early 1960s in New York City, where she joined her Harlem neighbors in protests calling for better schools and an end to job discrimination. She became increasingly radicalized in 1963, after meeting Malcolm X and joining the Black nationalist movement. Her focus rapidly expanded to include support for Puerto Rican independence and reparations for Japanese American internment camp survivors.
- Kochiyama’s unwavering advocacy of fair labor practices is highlighted in this photograph. It documents her participation in a protest by restaurant workers in New York City’s Chinatown.
- Nacida en San Pedro, California
- Yuri Kochiyama defendió causas progresistas durante más de cuatro décadas. “No fue que me desperté un día y decidí ser activista”, dijo en 2004. “Pero era imposible no ver las inequidades, las injusticias. [Estaban] por todos lados”.
- Durante la 2a Guerra Mundial, Kochiyama estuvo entre los más de 125,000 japoneses americanos encarcelados en campamentos a lo largo de EE.UU. Su activismo de base comunitaria comenzó en la década de 1960 en Nueva York, donde se unió a sus vecinos de Harlem en protestas por mejores escuelas y el cese de la discriminación en el empleo. En 1963 se hizo más radical al conocer a Malcolm X y unirse al movimiento nacionalista negro. Pronto amplió sus miras para apoyar la independencia de Puerto Rico y los reclamos de reparación para los japoneses americanos sobrevivientes de los campamentos.
- Esta foto destaca a Kochiyama en su firme defensa de prácticas laborales justas, documentando su participación en una protesta por los empleados de los restaurantes en el Chinatown de Nueva York.
- Credit Line
- National Portrait Gallery; Smithsonian Institution
- 1980 (printed 2016)
- Object number
- NPG.2016.102
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Copyright
- © Corky Lee Estate
- Type
- Photograph
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- Image: 23.4 × 15.5 cm (9 3/16 × 6 1/8")
- Sheet: 25.4 × 20.4 cm (10 × 8 1/16")
- Place
- United States\New York\Kings\New York
- See more items in
- National Portrait Gallery Collection
- Exhibition
- The Struggle for Justice Refresh
- On View
- NPG, West Gallery 220
- National Portrait Gallery
- Topic
- Costume\Headgear\Hat
- Costume\Dress Accessory\Eyeglasses
- Architecture\Building
- Exterior\Cityscape
- Equipment\Sign
- Yuri Kochiyama: Female
- Yuri Kochiyama: Social Welfare and Reform\Reformer\Social reformer\Civil rights activist
- Portrait
- Record ID
- npg_NPG.2016.102
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm44de32ccf-436e-4390-a75d-8abcc0ee9a77
