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Opening Night of "Bits of Paradise" at The Marsh Theater, San Francisco (Nov. 2008): Marlan Warren (L); Yuri Kochiyama (M); Ruth Ishizaki (R); Photo by Victoria Yang
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I wrote the following memorial last year when activist and justice crusader Yuri Kochiyama "made her transition" from this mundane world to whatever glory no doubt awaited her in the next. I had posted it on my Open Salon blog, "Dancing in the Experience Lane," because that blog seemed to get the most attention of all my blogs. However, with the sad news that Open Salon has shut down its operation, I re-print it here. For more info on the documentary-in-progress that I've been working on since Dec. '08, please visit http://www.yurikochiyamafilm.net.
"To never break one
link of friendship, regardless of the time or distance that separates me from
that friend, even if that friendship is only a memory stored away in my heart
and mind."--Yuri's Creed
Yesterday I did not listen to the radio or
TV. It was a busy day full of Light and people carrying Light. I ended up at a
Buddhist Temple in L.A.'s Chinatown which is dedicated to a Sea Goddess, and
sat for hours with my friend whom I call "Tiger" who was spending
time with a couple friends. One was a filmmaker who had not met Yuri Kochiyama
personally but admires her, and we spent an hour or so talking about my
Crusaders film project that I began shooting at the end of 2008, and that is
now in need of funds for post-production. It was not until this morning, June
3, that I woke up at 4 a.m. and saw a message on my phone that Yuri (aka
"Mary Nakahara") had died in her sleep yesterday afternoon. Around
the time that I was walking into the temple to light incense and send prayers
for loved ones.
I
have never met anyone else as egoless as this woman.
Yuri had that rare gift--like that old
saying "The charming woman is the one who finds ME charming," she
would light up at the sight of you and say things like, "Oh how is the
acting going? I thought you did such wonderful acting in that play!" As
she did to one actor who was in "Bits of Paradise" (Jean Franco) when
he saw her again during the shoot we did all day in her room at the San Pedro
Hotel. When Jean told her that he was in "Milk," Yuri cried, "Oh
they made a movie about Harvey Milk! I must go see it!" And when Jean
showed her a clipping from a paper with a photo showing him in the crowd scene
with Sean Penn, Yuri said, "Oh! That yellow just sets you off!"
I had the good fortune to meet Yuri when
she was 87 years old; at a time when all that she had done and lived through
had blended into the layered personality that was hers and hers alone.
She asked me to come the day before the
shoot and help her organize her papers so they could be easily put aside in the
tiny room, and not clutter up our visuals: "Bring red folders and green
folders and yellow folders..." and she requested colored tabs and rubber
bands.
Yuri was writing to 200 political prisoners
at the time (the T-shirt she wore for our interview says "Free Mumia"
on it). And when I arrived to help her, she quickly assigned me the role of
"assistant" and I had the pleasure of observing her still-sharp mind
in action as she went through the voluminous mail so we could file it.
"Oh I haven't read this one
yet...It goes in that pile with the red folder...."
And
when we started shooting the next day, I wasn't sure if the sound equipment we
brought would be adequate. I muttered, "Maybe we'll get lucky." Right
there on camera, Yuri says sharply, but not unkindly: "Oh it's not a
matter of LUCK, is it?" or words to that effect.
Yuri was a woman who carved her own swath
from Day One. It has always been my intention to cover the WOMAN rather than
the political activist (which she most certainly was so that is of course
infused in every frame). Since that day in 2001 when I happened to read the
first of her letters in The Crusaders Scrapbook in the Japanese American
National Museum in Little Tokyo, I have wished I could grow up to be Yuri
Kochiyama (to paraphrase the Blue Scholars terrific song title). In other
words, I wanted to be able to roll with the punches the way she had, and not be
depressed by oppression and loss. Yuri lost her father to FBI interrogation
right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and soon found herself in the Santa Anita
Assembly Center (aka "first concentration camp in Southern California
where they held law-abiding Japanese American citizens because they were of
Japanese heritage).
"Hello Boys" one of her
cheerful missives intended for "any soldier in need of a letter"
starts out, "Are we bothering you for the first time or the
fortieth?" Cartoons, jokes ("I said, 'Bring in all the jokes you can
find," she tells me during the interview when she's looking at a copy of
one of her pamphlets.
When World War II ended, her
"intended." Bill Kochiyama sent her a telegram warning her that he
was alive but broke with no prospects. Not much to build a future on, so if she
wanted out. I don't have the words in front of me right now, but she sent him a
telegram back telling him that they would have love, adventure and each other.
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Yuri Kochiyama and Jean Franco at her 88th birthday bash (San Francisco);
Photo by Marlan Warren
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Yuri Kochiyama was born "Mary
Nakahara." In the interview, I asked her what Mary would think of Yuri.
She answered, "Two different people. Totally!"
At the invitation of Rogue Machine Theatre in Hollywood, "Bits of
Paradise: Kochiyama's Crusaders" will be presented as a staged reading on
July 19 (3pm and 8pm) and July 20 (8pm). The play, by Marlan Warren in
collaboration with Ariel Kayoko Labasan focuses on a women's movement founded
by renowned human rights activist Yuri Kochiyama when she was known as 20-year
old "Mary Nakahara" and incarcerated in U.S. concentration camps
during World War II with her fellow Japanese Americans. Calling themselves
"The Crusaders," the girls and women mobilized a morale-boosting
letter-writing campaign that ensured that "any soldier missing a letter"
would receive mail.
