Yuji Ichioka (June 23, 1936 – September 1, 2002) was an American historian and civil rights activist best known for his work in

ethnic studies Ethnic studies, in the United States, is the interdisciplinary study of difference—chiefly race, ethnicity, and nation, but also sexuality, gender, and other such markings—and power, as expressed by the state, by civil society, and by indivi ...

, particularly Asian American Studies and for being a leader in the

Asian American movement The Asian American movement was a sociopolitical movement in which the widespread grassroots effort of Asian Americans affected racial, social and political change in the U.S, reaching its peak in the late 1960s to mid-1970s. During this period Asia ...

. An adjunct professor at UCLA, he and

Emma Gee Emma Gee is an American activist and writer, who coined the term "Asian American" with Yuji Ichioka. Biography In 1968, Chinese American Gee and her Japanese American partner and future husband Yuji Ichioka, both graduate students at Universi ...

coined the term "

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peopl ...

" in 1968 during the founding of the

Asian American Political Alliance The Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) was a political organization started at University of California, Berkeley in 1968 that aimed to unite all Asian Americans under one identity to push for political and social action. The two main chapte ...

,Daryl (2012). Rethinking the Asian American Movement. New York: Routledge. pp. 9–13, 18, 26, 29, 32–35, 42–48, 80, 108, 116–117, 139. to help unify different Asian ethnic groups (e.g.

Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...

Filipino American Filipino Americans ( fil, Mga Pilipinong Amerikano) are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipinos and other Asian ethnicities in North America were first documented in the 16th century as slaves and prisoners on ships sailing to and from New ...

s, etc.), and was considered the preeminent scholar of Japanese American history.

Early life and education

Yuji Ichioka was born in 1936 in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. As a child, he was interned with his family at the

Topaz War Relocation Center The Topaz War Relocation Center, also known as the Central Utah Relocation Center (Topaz) and briefly as the Abraham Relocation Center, was an American concentration camp which housed Americans of Japanese descent and immigrants who had come t ...

in Utah following the signing of

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...

. The family returned to San Francisco after their release from camp, and he finished grade school there, graduating from Berkeley High School in 1954. After three years of military service, Ichioka enrolled at UCLA, earning an undergraduate degree in history in 1962. The following year, he started a graduate program at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, studying Chinese history but soon dropped out and instead worked for a social service agency in New York. In 1966, he took an extended trip to Japan and, upon his return, enrolled at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

, receiving an M.A. in Asian Studies in 1968.

Career

Ichioka founded the

in 1968 during his time at Berkeley, and coined the term "Asian American" for it with Emma Gee, to frame a new self-defining political lexicon. (Before the adoption of this term, people of Asian ancestry were generally called Oriental or Asiatic.) In 1969, Ichioka taught the first Asian American Studies course at UCLA and was named associate director of the university's newly formed Asian American Studies Center. Ichioka later served as a senior researcher at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Adjunct Professor of History at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

(UCLA) from approximately 1969 to 2002. His seminal work, ''

Issei is a Japanese-language term used by ethnic Japanese in countries in North America and South America to specify the Japanese people who were the first generation to immigrate there. are born in Japan; their children born in the new country are ...

: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924'', won the 1989 U.S. History Book Award of the National Association for Asian American Studies. Ichioka recorded subsequent research in the two books: ''A Buried Past'' and ''A Buried Past II''.

Legacy

He died from cancer on September 1, 2002. He was survived by his wife of over 25 years,

. The Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee Endowment in Social Justice and Immigration Studies was established in their name at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

Selected publications

* * * *

Early life and education

Career

Legacy

Selected publications

References

See also