Chris Kwando Iijima[1] (1948–2005) was an American folksinger, educator and legal scholar. He, Nobuko JoAnne 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."[2] Iijima sang a song from the album on the Mike Douglas Show, co-hosted with John Lennon and Yoko Ono on February 15, 1972.[3]
Iijima was a founder of Asian Americans for Action, one of the first Asian American-focused civil rights organizations of the 1960s.[4] Iijima later became a law professor and wrote about discrimination against Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and members of other racial groups.[citation needed]
A documentary on Iijima's life, A Song for Ourselves, by Tadashi Nakamura premiered on February 28, 2009 in Los Angeles.[5] The Chris Iijima Fund is an endowed fund supporting cultural and economic diversity at the Manhattan Country School where Iijima taught for ten years.[6]
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