Join AAEdu for a walking tour of West Harlem led by the Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project. CTLE provided!

The Asian American Education Project (AAEdu) is hosting a series of FREE K-12 educator events throughout Fall 2026 to deepen knowledge of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and cross-racial histories and experiences!

At this event, participants will engage in a walking tour led by the Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project. The walking tour covers key locations in the Kochiyama family's history in Harlem. The tour will be led by Akemi Kochiyama-Ladson, a scholar-activist and Yuri's granddaughter.

Attendees must be educators teaching in New York City schools. Educators are eligible to receive CTLE credit.

162 Waverly Pl, San Francisco, CA

General ticket is free. Livonia Chow Mein Signed Book $29/person.

Join us for a book talk with Abigail Savitch-Lew, the author of Livonia Chow Mein: A Novel, in conversation with scholar-activist Akemi Kochiyama-Ladson, the granddaughter of Yuri Kochiyama.  Come hear about the inspiration behind the book, the challenges of crafting it, and its insights on Black-Asian relations and cross-racial solidarity. After the talk, stick around for a book signing and a chance to chat with her.

On August 18th, 2026, the Sakura Series hosted a beautiful night of poetry and raising funds and mutual aid for Colombia and Hawai’i!

Akemi served as a judge on the 5-person panel.

On this summer Monday, Akemi Kochiyama-Ladson led Columbia University staff and student fellows from the 2026 Social Innovation Fellowship program for juniors and seniors on a Harlem walking tour.

Columbia World Projects mobilizes the university’s researchers and scholars to work with governments, organizations, businesses and communities to tackle global challenges.

MFA Design for Social Innovation hosted Radical Relations: Creative conversations on solidarity, legacy, activism, and art with Akemi Kochiyama-Ladson, traci kato-kiriyama, and special guests.

On June 17, 2026, Akemi-Kochiyama Ladson visited the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) to join the “Histories of Solidarity” session at The Localized Histories Project’s inaugural youth conference, “Building Critical AAPI Histories”.

On June 12, 2026, YKSP hosted a reception for Aisha Fukushima’s book of poetry, “Mostly Water” at the YKSP Residency Space in Harlem, NYC. This was a smaller, more intimate gathering compared to the reception held at Columbia University’s Butler Library a couple days earlier.

On June 10, 2026, we held a reading and reception to celebrate Aisha Fukushima’s new book, Mostly Water. Presented by the Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project, in collaboration with the Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) at Columbia University.

Mostly Water is a poetry collection born from years of navigating social norms that fail to capture what it means to be mixed. Drawing on her lived experiences as a Black and Japanese person growing up between the U.S. and Japan, Aisha Fukushima explores what it means to live from mixed roots. Moving through her grandmother’s kitchen, hair salons, and post-WWII Afro-Japanese histories, Fukushima challenges narrow frameworks around racial belonging. Here, abundance replace the racialized math of halves and quarters. From micro-aggressions to quiet prayers, each stanza is a lyric within a larger freedom song.

On June 3rd, 2026, YKSP joined Asian American Futures (AAF) for “The Future is Abundant” convening.

Join Harlem Run for our weekly group run, walk and run/walk! Meet up 7pm at the Comfort Station in Marcus Garvey Park (i.e. in between the baseball field and the amphitheater). We'll be joined by scholar, activist and community builder Akemi Kochiyama (+special guest). We have routes honoring the life and legacy of her grandmother, Yuri Kochiyama, for Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.

Bring a friend or two. RSVP and let us know that you’re coming!

YKSP Co-Director, Akemi Kochiyama-Ladson served as a panelist, along with several other impressive participants, during this historic launch of Foundations and Futures: Asian American and Pacific Islander Multimedia Textbook. The event featured world-renowned authors, captivating conversations, exciting performances, and so much more!

Foundations and Futures is a bold new multimedia textbook that places Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences at the heart of the American story. Developed by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, it is the most comprehensive collection ever published online, freely accessible to high school and college students and the general public. Featuring 50 chapters written by leading scholars, journalists, and community historians, the textbook highlights over 20 AAPI communities across the United States, its territories, and the Pacific. With 1,500+ media assets plus over 250 ready-to-use lesson plans for grades 9–14, it turns classrooms into powerful spaces for empathy, critical thinking, and social transformation.

YKSP Co-Director, Audee Kochiyama-Holman was honored at Collective Liberation 2026: Celebrating Leaders Behind the Movement, New Breath Foundation’s Annual Awards Ceremony & Fundraiser.

She was awarded NBF’s Movement Elder Award, which recognizes, thanks, and highlights those with decades of work in overlapping grassroots social justice movements, such as criminal legal reform, civil rights, racial justice, Asian American activism, LGBTQ, and more.

Panelists Jamal Joseph, Akemi Kochiyama, Tamara Payne, and Jaimee Swift participated in a conversation about the revolutionary friendship of Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama. Coinciding with the 60th anniversary of Malcolm X's death, the discussion focused on archives, truth-telling, and understanding the histories and possibilities of radical solidarities.

This event was co-created by The New York Public Library's Center for Educators and Schools, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and in collaboration with the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University and the Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project.