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Chris Kando Iijima (1948–2005) was an Asian American folksinger, educator and legal scholar. He, Joanne Nobuko Miyamoto, and Charlie Chin, were the members of the group ''Yellow Pearl''; their 1973 album, ''A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America'', (originally recorded on Paredon Records now Smithsonian Folkways was an important part of the development of Asian American identity in the early 1970s. AsianWeek columnist Phil Tajitsu Nash stated that when hearing the album or Yellow Pearl perform live, "From Boston to Chicago to San Francisco to Honolulu, Asian-derived people who had been classified in the Census as "Other" suddenly realized that they had an identity, a history, and a place at the table."〔(Phil Nash, Remembering Chris Iijima )〕 Iijima sang a song from the album on the Mike Douglas Show, co-hosted with John Lennon and Yoko Ono on February 15, 1972.〔(Leila Fujimori, ''UH law professor was Asian-American activist'', Honolulu Star Bulletin, Jan. 17, 2006. )〕 Iijima was also a founder of Asian Americans for Action, one of the first Asian American-focused civil rights organizations of the 1960s.〔(Andrew Hsiao, ''100 Years of Hell-Raising: The Hidden History of Asian American Activism in New York City'', The Village Voice, June 23, 1989. )〕 Iijima later became a law professor and wrote about discrimination against Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and members of other racial groups. A documentary on Iijima's life, ''A Song for Ourselves'', by Tadashi Nakamura premieres on February 28, 2009 in Los Angeles.〔(Official Website for film ''A Song for Ourselves'' )〕 The Chris Iijima Fund is an endowed fund supporting cultural and economic diversity at the Manhattan Country School where Iijima taught for ten years.〔http://alumni.manhattancountryschool.org/donations/〕 == Biography == Iijima was born in New York City in 1948 to Takeru and Kazuko Iijima. His parents, both Nisei, or second-generation Japanese Americans, were active in promoting Asian American and general civil rights issues, helping to form Asian Americans for Action (the first such organization on the East Coast) and the United Asian Communities Center. Iijima earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1969. While a student there, he was involved in the Columbia University protests of 1968 against the Vietnam War; he is wearing a hat, immediately to the left of Mark Rudd, in a famous Life Magazine (photograph ) of students in the office of president Grayson Kirk. In 1988 he received a J.D. from New York Law School. He served on the faculties of New York University School of Law, Western New England College School of Law, and the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Iijima died of a rare blood disease at age 57, on December 31, 2005.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chris Iijima」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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