Advocates
for a community's civil rights are greatly needed to identify/address
the needs of people that are not properly represented and/or not deemed
"important" by the general media. In this world of multiculturalism,
the below-listed activists are needed to remind that the media that
these multi-ethnic communities will not go away.
GRACE LEE BOGGS - 1st generation NYC-based Chinese American
has been a speaker, writer, and movement activist primarily in
Detroit's African American community for the past fifty-five years.
Raised during a time when her father was not allowed to buy land
because he was Chinese, she was in her twenties when she was inspired
to become involved in civil rights and dedicate her life to social
justice. Her autobiography, "Living For Change," is a sweeping
account of her life as an untraditional radical from the end of
the 1930s, through the cold war, the civil rights era, and the
rise of Black Power and the Black Panthers, to the present efforts
to rebuild America's crumbling urban communities.
NORIKO SAWADA BRIDGES FLYNN - Japanese American civil-rights
activist and writer who successfully challenged Nevada's law barring
mixed marriages
Y.C. HONG - 1st Chinese American to graduate from USC
Law School, passed the bar in 1923, becoming the first Chinese
American to become a certified lawyer in California. Hong's office
was for years the only place that Chinese Angelenos could find
immigration advice.
YUJI ICHIOKA - created the phrase "Asian American" and
renowned Asian American historian
STUART ISHIMARU - he has long years of federal and community
service and in the field of civil rights, including: acting staff
director for U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1993-94); counsel
to Assistant Attorney General (1994-99) and Deputy Assistant Attorney
General (1999-2001) in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department
of Justice.
YURI KOCHIYAMA - a central figure
Asian Pacific American history and the civil rights movement leader
who has been featured in the documentaries "My America ... Or Honk
If You Love Buddha" and "Yuri Kochiyama: A Passion for Justice,"
who dedicated
her life to political activism, participating
in issues such as nuclear disarmament, Japanese
American redress and reparations, and international prisoners'
rights. and had a friendship with Malcolm
X. Read her interview
that shares the reasons behind her passions.
FRED KOREMATSU - this Oakland civil rights crusader is
the honorary chairman of the California Civil Rights Commission
on Hate Crimes, who advises the attorney general on finding ways
to improve diversity, train law enforcement officers and monitor
extremist hate groups. During World War II, Korematsu's
legal challenges to civilian exclusion orders helped spur the
redress movement for Japanese Americans. He won the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian
honor in 1998. He
died in 2005.
ALBERTA LEE - Dr. Lee's daughter who became an impassioned
spokesperson for her father and Asian American civil rights.
KAREN NARASAKI - Executive Director of the National Asian
Pacific American Legal Consortium, Executive Committee of the
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights as the Chairperson of its
Compliance/Enforcement Committee and is Chairperson of the National
Network Against Anti-Asian Violence. Before joining AAJC (aka NAPALC), Ms.
Narasaki was the Washington, DC
Representative for the Japanese American Citizens League. Prior
to
that she was a corporate attorney at Perkins Coie in Seattle,
Washington. Before joining Perkins Coie, she served as a Law Clerk
to
Judge Harry Pregerson on the United States Court of Appeals for
the
Ninth Circuit in Los Angeles.
ROSE ICHI - Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific
American Legal Consortium, Executive Committee of the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights as the Chairperson of its Compliance/Enforcement
Committee and is Chairperson of the National Network Against Anti-Asian
Violence.
DANNY SEO - Internationally renown activist, author and
public speaker
L. LING-CHI WANG - an uncompromising Bay-area community
activist who co-founded Chinese for Affirmative Action
TAKUJI YAMASHITA - Takuyamashita Yamashita was one of
the century's earliest civil-rights crusaders, a prescient forerunner
to the likes of Clarence Darrow and Thurgood Marshall.
HELEN
ZIA - is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Asian
American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People. She is an
award-winning journalist and a contributing editor to Ms. Magazine.
Ms. Zia has been an activist in the Asian American community for
many years.
