Search the Media Repository
Discover the curated images, videos, and primary sources featured throughout Foundations and Futures
History is more than just text on a page; it is the photographs, voices, and artifacts of the people who lived it. The images and recordings featured across Foundations and Futures are part of a meticulously curated media repository. Whether you are building a lesson plan or investigating an artifact, you can use this database to trace the provenance of our media: discover who created an asset, the historical context behind it, and how it can be used to bring Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences into your classroom.
Multimedia
Chapters
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Text
Billy Kochiyama’s Letter to his Parents
Billy Kochiyama wrote to his parents from Mississippi, where he went to support and learn about the Southern Civil Rights Movement.
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Christmas Cheer Articles
Articles by Billy, Audee, Aichi (Lorrie) and other Kochiyama children, Christmas Cheer, December 1965
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Christmas Cheer Articles
Articles by Billy, Audee, Aichi (Lorrie) and other Kochiyama children, Christmas Cheer, December 1965
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Image
Anti-War Demonstration in NYC
Asian Americans demonstrating in New York City against the Vietnam War.
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Audio
Pay the Tab – Japanese American Reparations: Lessons For Black America
Hear activist Kathy Masaoka discuss Japanese American organizing for Black Reparations. Masaoka testified before Congress in 2021 in support of Black Reparations bill HR 40. Artist-activist traci kato-kiriyama asks: Why do we hear so little about Black-Asian solidarity?
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Malcolm X in The North Star Newsletter
Kochiyama’s family newsletter The North Star started in December 1965 to honor Malcolm X.
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Postcard from Malcolm X
One of eleven postcards Malcolm X sent to the Kochiyamas from his travels abroad. This one is postmarked from Cairo in 1964.
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Malcolm X with Kochiyama Family
Malcolm X visited the Kochiyama home in June 1964 to meet hibakusha, or survivors of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, during their world tour. Kochiyama’s daughter, Audee, is second to left.
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Yuri Kochiyama’s Notes
Yuri Kochiyama’s notes from her attendance at the OAAU Liberation School reveal her evolving understanding of race and racism. She writes at the top, “US born with a congenital deformity – slavery.”
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Demonstration in Manhattan
James Peck (right) a Freedom Rider who was severely beaten in Birmingham, Alabama, pickets in Manhattan with his head heavily bandaged.
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The Hiroshima Maidens
A photograph of the Hiroshima Maidens, a group of young hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) women who traveled from Japan to the United States to receive health care and reconstructive surgery.
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The Hiroshima Sequel: Scars Diminish As Love Mushrooms
The Kochiyama’s Christmas Cheer newsletter article on the Hiroshima Maidens, 1956.
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The Nisei Sino Service Organization
The Nisei Sino Service Organization (c. 1950’s) aimed to support Asian American soldiers with fellowship, service, and personal growth.
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Yuri Kochiyama and Her Children
Yuri Kochiyama (center) with five of her six children, c. 1957.
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Video
Yuri Kochiyama Interview
Listen to Yuri Kochiyama in her own words. In this interview with her biographer, Yuri describes her first job waitressing in New York while learning about the lives of her southern Black coworkers and the discrimination they experienced.
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Bill and Yuri’s Wedding Day
Bill and Yuri in New York City on their wedding day, February 9, 1946.
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May 1942 Diary Entry
This entry from Yuri’s concentration camp diary from May 12, 1942 shows her struggling to remain patriotic while recognizing American prejudice against her community. What can we learn about how ideas about race can change?
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Bill Kochiyama
Yuri met her future husband, Bill Kochiyama, a soldier in the US Army, while working at the USO in the Jerome, Arkansas concentration camp. They endured the long distance while he was on the battlefield overseas. Letters helped to ease the separation.
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The Senior Crusaders
Yuri’s mother (kneeling, second from right) with the Senior Crusaders, a group Yuri organized to write letters to Japanese American soldiers overseas during WWII. Photographed at Jerome, Arkansas concentration camp, c. 1944.
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Yuri Kochiyama at the Santa Anita Assembly Center
Yuri Kochiyama, around age 21, in front of a barracks at Santa Anita, where Japanese Americans were forced to live in small and barren units, c. 1942.
