Voting Station

Yuri Kochiyama

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Advocate

The Resume

    (May 19, 1921-June 1, 2014)
    Born in San Pedro, California
    Birth name is Mary Yuriko Nakahara
    Japanese-American human rights activist
    Close associate of Malcolm X
    Influenced by her family's time spent in the Japanese internment camps, between 1942 and 1945
    Became active with the Revolutionary Action Movement, in the mid-1960s
    Was actively involved with the Black Liberationist movement and the Japanese internment reparations movement
    With her husband, spearheaded a campaign to bring the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to New York
    Devoted her later years to the anti-war effort, and to advocating for political prisoners
    Subject of the documentary film, ‘Mountains That Take Wing,’ along with <15463>Angela Davis Featured in the documentary films, ‘Cool Women’ and ‘All Power to the People!’
    Likeness was featured on a Google Doodle, sparking controversy (May 19, 2016)

Why she might be annoying:

    She actively supported Marilyn Buck.
    Her political views were described as 'contradictory,' even by her friends.
    She made a career out of organizing 'get-out-jail' campaigns for domestic terrorists.
    She unwisely aligned herself with supporters of the Maoist Revolution.
    She was accused of promoting guerilla warfare as a practical means to affect change.
    She and a group of Puerto Rican activists took forceful control over the Statue of Liberty to demand the release of four nationalists convicted of opening fire on the House of Representatives and injuring five (1977).
    She took part in the experimental Republic of New Africa (RNA), which was supposed to be a theoretical 'separate black nation' within the US.
    She tried to prove to the RNA that she was 'down with the struggle' by dropping her baptized name 'Mary,' calling it her 'slave name...'
    She expressed admiration for Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh and then was shocked that people started profiling her as 'radical.'
    She remained clueless when she went on record praising Osama Bin Laden, in 2003, saying: 'I thank Islam for bin Laden. America's greed, aggressiveness, and self-righteous arrogance must be stopped.'
    The outrage over her being given a 'Google Doodle' was the accumulation of years' worth of frustration over the Silicon Valley search engine's tone-deaf priorities (at least one US Senator called for Google to issue an apology for it).

Why she might not be annoying:

    She worked to teach English to newly-arrived immigrants.
    She was very active with New York-based soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
    Her father was interred by the US government for six months (he died shortly after returning).
    She advocated for nuclear disarmament and for an end to the Vietnam War.
    She was present at the assassination of Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom, in 1965, and an image of her holding his dying body in her arms was widely circulated in newspapers.
    She was one of the few non-blacks invited to join the RNA project.
    She said 'the legacy I would like to leave is that people try to build bridges and not walls' (that whole Separatist movement thing aside here...)
    Her activism resulted in President Reagan signing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which, awarded $20,000 to Japanese American citizens who had been in internment camps.
    She was one of 1,000 women collectively nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize through the '1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize' project (2005).
    She is referenced on a track on the Blue Scholars' 'Bayani' album (they later devoted an entire song to her for their 2011 Cinematropolis album).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 109 Votes: 60.55% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 62 Votes: 56.45% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 15 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 67 Votes: 43.28% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 26 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 138 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 20 Votes: 65.00% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 39 Votes: 64.10% Annoying