Karl Ichiro Akiya Papers

Karl Ichiro Akiya (1909-2001) was born in San Francisco, and, at the age of six, was sent to be educated in Japan. As an adult, he became active in union movements and was associated with the Japanese Socialist and Communist Parties. He became a member of the Communist Party and changed his first name to Karl after Karl Marx. A vocal opponent of Japanese militarism, he returned to the US in 1932. Upon his return, he joined the Japanese American Citizens’ League and organized kibei (Japanese Americans who had been educated in Japan) membership sections in California. After a brief incarceration at the Topaz War Relocation Center, Akiya was recruited as a language instructor for the US Army. He married fellow instructor Satoko Murakami in 1944 and after the war, moved to New York City’s Lower East Side. It was there that he became active in the civil rights, peace, and anti-nuclear movements. Akiya also worked as a furniture finisher, and later as a banker. He spent his evenings writing articles, essays, novellas, and a memoir. His writings were printed in the New York Nichibei newspaper and New York Bungei, a literary magazine Akiya founded in 1959. In 1987, he received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Community Organizing for his work with African American youth in Harlem, and Chinese and Korean immigrant workers.

The Akiya Papers include personal and published writing, artwork, publications, pamphlets, photographs, and news clippings. These materials offer insights into Akiya’s life and work in the United States and Japan.

To learn more about the contents of the Karl Ichiro Akiya Papers, located at the NYU Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, view the collection’s finding aid.

Image: Photograph of an illustration depicting workers from Topaz, 1942; The Karl Ichiro Akiya Papers; TAM.236; Box 8; Folder 3; NYU Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.