Yuri’s Family Life
While being interned at Camp Jerome, Yuri met her future husband, Bill Kochiyama. Bill was serving as a Japanese soldier fighting for the United States in World War II. Yuri and Bill were married in 1946, beginning their 47 year marriage. In 1948 they moved to New York City and lived in the public housing community called Amsterdam Houses near Lincoln Center.
After living in that community for twelve years, they moved to the Manhattanville Housing Projects in Harlem where they raised their six children: Billy, Audee, Aichi, Eddie, Jimmy, and Tommy. Their home in Harlem was the epicenter of their community gatherings as well as their community organizing. They called this neighborhood their home for 30 years.
After Bill’s death in 1993 and experiencing a stroke, Kochiyama moved from their home in Harlem to Oakland, California to live with her daughter in 1999. During the later years of her life she was actively engaged in community organizing and speaking engagements across the country. Yuri Kochiyama became an ancestor on June 1, 2014 at the age of 93.
