Yuri
Kochiyama is a Japanese American civil rights activist whose family was sent to
an internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, as were 130,000 other
Japanese Americans. In the 1960s she became an activist after meeting and working
with Malcolm X. For over 40 years she has dedicated her life to working for a
better world, becoming involved in many causes including racial justice, human
rights, advocating for the rights of political prisoners, nuclear disarmament,
and reparations to Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II. Yuri
Kochiyama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 as part of the 1000
Women for the Nobel Peace Prize project.
