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Yuri Kochiyama Choose Your Shirt!
Yuri Kochiyama: The Movement is Contagious Design by Sophy Wong - part of our Community Artist Series
About Yuri:
Yuri Kochiyama has been and continues to be an inspiration to generations of activists, especially in the Asian American community. She emerged as one of the most prominent Asian Americans in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Her work bridges divides in multiple progressive and radical political communities, bringing together people in the Black Liberation Movement, political prisoner defense, Asian American equality, and Puerto Rican Independence. Yuri is truly dedicated to social justice among all peoples. She is remarkable among activists in that while she is an unabashedly political revolutionary leader, she manages to be uniquely compassionate, supportive and humble. She takes on the never-ending task of nurturing and grooming each wave of young activists. She is forever dedicated to the “togetherness of all people.”
We love her for being so dedicated to all that she does and everyone she knows – in short, for being Yuri.
About the design:
I have wanted make a design to pay tribute to Yuri for a long time. We needed a “pop” image to celebrate her as an important figure in the Asian American community and among social justice activists. I finally learned to silkscreen in the late winter of 2006 and had the perfect chance to hand-make t-shirts and posters with a design that captured Yuri’s image and language.
Yuri’s image on the shirt is a hand-drawn adaptation of a photo of Yuri at an anti-war rally in Central Park, circa 1968. I drew it in the flat, bold style of Cuban revolutionary posters that capture the energy and funkiness of public political art. The quote is taken from a recent conversation Yuri had with Diane Fujino for Fujino’s book Yuri Kochiyama: Heartbeat of Struggle, echoing remarks she made in a 1990 interview Sasha Hohri in the Asian American magazine Gidra and in Tajiri and Saunders’ 1993 video Yuri Kochiyama: A Passion for Justice.
From Yuri:
“The Movement is contagious and awesome because the people in it are the spirit of the Movement. And the Movement will continue because new concerned people will rejuvenate and revitalize this never-ending struggle. It just always makes you want to be part of it.”
p.s.
On a recent visit with Yuri to show her the design, Yuri reminded me that my work in global health and social justice is important because “the Movement is contagious” and would inspire others to continue this work. As a medical doctor I try control and cure things that are contagious, but in this case I hope that I can help the contagion of the Movement spread freely and widely.
