Tribute to Chris Iijima

by Mari Matsuda

Chris Iijima, musician, lawyer, and Asian American Movement activist, passed away on January 1, 2005. Iijima was actively involved in the movement starting in the late 60s; besides his role as a performer, he served as a school teacher, Chinatown youth counselor, and bartendar at the late Enka Japanese Restuarant -- an Asian American hangout in New York City. In 1973, Iijima recorded the first Asian American musical album, "A Grain of Sand," with Nobuko Miyamoto and Charlie Chine. Mari Matsuda delivered the below tribute at the Na Loio No Na Kanaka annual fundraiser, October 2005.

We are the children of the migrant workers
We are the offspring of the concentration camp
Sons and daughters of the railroad builder
Who leave their stamp on Amerika

We are the children of the Chinese waiter,
Born and raised in the laundry room
We are the offsping of the Japanese gardener
Who leave their stamp on Amerika

Those lyrics by Chris Iijima and Nobu Miyamoto created a community, by putting down on vinyl what they called “a song of ourselves,” at a time when we were otherwise absent from the space called popular culture. I first heard that song not off the famous Grain of Sand album, but sung at a nuclear free Hawaii fundraiser at Harris Memorial Church, performed by earnest young ethnic studies professors from the University of Hawaii. That song traveled from Harlem to Honolulu, it was part of a huge wave of activism that picked up Asian Americans across the nation and plucked them down in sit-ins and fundraisers and up against police lines where the motto “serve the people,” was not just theory, but also practice. It was life. It was music. It was a way to change the world, and Chris wrote the soundtrack.

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