Quotes from Yuri Kochiyama

I didn't wake up and decide to become an activist. But you couldn't help notice the inequities, the injustices. It was all around you.

Remember that consciousness is power. Tomorrow's world is yours to build.

People have a right to violence, to rebel, to fight back. And given what the United States Government and Western powers have done to the third world, I feel that these countries should fight back.

So, transform yourself first… Because you are young and have dreams and want to do something meaningful, that in itself, makes you our future and our hope. Keep expanding your horizon, decolonize your mind, and cross borders.

Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another.

Unless we know ourselves and our history, and other people and their history, there is really no way that we can really have positive kinds of interaction where there is real understanding.

I thought maybe this was the way we could show love for our country, and we should not make too much fuss or noise, we should abide by what they asked of us. I'm a totally different person now than I was back then. I was naiive about so many things.

Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another.

I lived in San Pedro, California, which is, you know, on the west side of California, and it's where many, many Japanese lived.

Our ultimate objective in learning about anything is to try to create and develop a more just society.

I don't think there will ever be a time when people will stop wanting to bring about change.

Projects meant living with blacks and Puerto Ricans, but that's what we wanted. Living in the projects, we've met so many wonderful, wonderful people.

People have a right to violence, to rebel, to fight back.

The most important thing today is to stop US wars.

I tell you, in this country, you don't get much of an education. Throughout high school, through junior college, which is all I went, I didn't know anything about the annihilation of all the Indian nations that were here.

When you're in a black group, you have to keep in mind you're not black. You just have to be sensitive. We have to be appreciative that the black nationalist struggle is a nationalist struggle.