#karin aguilar-san juan

I visited Yuri and Bill in 1992 in their apartment in Harlem. The sofa where we sat was covered with dozens of cute little stuffed bears. On the walls were plaques and thank you messages from the Black community, at least one of them mentioning Malcolm X. I was there to learn about their history and perspectives on Asian American movement organizing. Years later I saw her give talks in different places and paying so much attention to everyone who approached her. She would ask for your name and record it in her little book, and then ask you all kinds of things about what you thought as if she were really learning from you. She was kind and strong and committed: one of a kind woman.

Karin Aguilar-San Juan is the editor of The State of Asian America: Activism & Resistance in the 1990s, published by South End Press