Kazu Iijima (1918 - August 26, 2007) was a Japanese American activist and community organizer who was a co-founder of Asian Americans for Action and the United Asian Communities Center.
Born Kazuko Ikeda in California, she grew up in Oakland, and attended college at UC Berkeley. She encountered Marxist critiques of racism through her older sister and the Young Communist League at Berkeley, and became involved in radical politics.[1] By 1938, Ikeda helped to form the Oakland Nisei Democratic Club to encourage more Niseis to take up radical responses to working class issues and racism. Ikeda was still living and working in the Bay Area when Japanese Americans on the west coast were subjected to incarceration under Executive Order 9066. She was first at Tanforan Assembly Center, and then Topaz concentration camp in Utah. She married Tak Iijima in Utah (he had been drafted into the US Army just before Pearl Harbor), and was released to move to Mississippi with him soon after.[2]
After the war, the couple settled in New York City, and began to raise a family. Although Iijima joined the Japanese American Committee for Democracy at that time, it wasn't until the late 1960s that she returned to organizing with the founding of Asian Americans for Action. Along with other Japanese American radicals like Yuri Kochiyama and Shizu "Minn" Matsuda, Iijima built the AAA as a platform for opposing the Vietnam War and for nurturing grassroots Asian American solidarity.[3][4] The organization was notable as the first group to define itself as pan-Asian, multigenerational, and politically progressive. One of the first actions they took after forming in 1969 was to challenge the Japanese American Citizens League to take a stand against the Vietnam War.[5]The group continued to evolve, changing its name in 1976 to Union of Activists to emphasize political struggle rather than identity, and finally breaking up in 1980 over irreconcilable internal differences.[6]
^Jonathan H.X. Lee, ed., Japanese Americans: The History and Culture of a People (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2018), 129.
^Jonathan H.X. Lee, ed., Japanese Americans: The History and Culture of a People(Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2018), 130.
^Diane C. Fujino, Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 236-237.
^Karen L. Ishizuka, “Flying in the Face of Race, Gender, Class and Age: A Story about Kazu Iijima, One of the Mothers of the Asian American Movement on the First Year Anniversary of Her Death,” Amerasia Journal 35, 2 (2009): 29
^Karen L. Ishizuka, “Flying in the Face of Race, Gender, Class and Age: A Story about Kazu Iijima, One of the Mothers of the Asian American Movement on the First Year Anniversary of Her Death,” Amerasia Journal 35, 2 (2009): 30-31
KazuIijima (1918 - August 26, 2007) was a Japanese American activist and community organizer who was a co-founder of Asian Americans for Action and the...
In 1969, Shizuko "Minn" Matsuda and KazuIijima founded the Asian Americans for Action (Triple A or AAA) in New York City. The two women were inspired...
Furutani Emma Gee Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga Fred Ho Yuji Ichioka Chris IijimaKazuIijima Lawson Fusao Inada Larry Itliong Yuri Kochiyama Stewart Kwoh Minn...
"Triple A"). In 1969, inspired by the Back Power Movement, with her friend KazuIijima (1918-2007), a survivor of the Japanese-American Internment Camp, Matsuda...
activists included Mitziko Sawada (academic historian and author), KazuIijima, Min Matsuda, Kazu Obayashi and Tami Ogata (founders of Asian Americans for Action)...
(1936–2002), an American historian who coined the term "Asian American". KazuIijima (1918–2007), an activist and community organizer. Homei Iseyama (1890-1975)...
Melbourne, Australia Asca, Hakos Baelz, Mori Calliope, Ricco Fajardo, DJ Kazu, Kirilee, André Knite, Adam McArthur, Lisa Ortiz, Olivia Swasey, Kaiji Tang...
Time of Lexapro Oneohtrix Point Never Remix, production 2019 Adult Baby Kazu Objects, chimes, triangle, tape loops, synthesizer, piano, field recordings...
Film. Audrey Marrs won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Kazu Hiro won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling in 2018 and 2020...
Award Jury: Choi Hee-seo (Actor, Korea), Yoshinori SATO (Director, Japan), Kazu WATANABE (Deputy Director of Film at Japan Society, USA) Period: 6–15 March...
Kinomiya/Jane Alan Black Ghost (child): Yūshō Uemura/Barbara Goodson Kazu: Yuki Tokiwa/Jane Alan Kazu's sister: Risa Shimizu/Wendee Lee A three-part original video...
Anaheim Hilton and Towers Anaheim, California 6,400 Mika Akitaka, Mari Iijima, Yoko Kanno, Hiromi Matsushita, Lisa Ortiz, Gilles Poitras, and Jan Scott-Frazier...
Daisuke Iijima Yumeka Sasaki Second 裸身の裏顔 ふしだらな愛 Rashin no Uragao: Fushidarana Ai OP Eiga Yumi Yoshiyuki Amu Miho Wakabayashi Rina Yūki Naoyuki Chiba Kazu Itsuki...
is portrayed by Chisato Takada (高田 知里, Takada Chisato) and Kazu Murakami (村上 和, Murakami Kazu) as a child. Keizō (敬造, 56) and Shōichi (正一, 56): A pair of...