Yellow Brotherhouse house, Los Angeles, 1971, "a magnet for Asian youth." Luxuries like having paid staff members was never a consideration for the Yellow Brotherhood, which started out by simply working with the people who were the most affected by drugs on the streets -- the youth. During this time, personal involvement in serving this need was just something people did.
Photo by Steven Fukuda, courtesy of Greg Fukuda.

"Action talks and bullshit walks"

By Nick Nagatani

Some of us from the neighborhood decided to meet with some of the founders of the Yellow Brotherhood (YB) [a grassroots organization] and get their permission to reopen the [community] house and start a drug prevention program for the youth in the community. We went to neighborhood schools, introduced ourselves to the Asian kids, invited them to the YB house and got to hear and learn about their situation by organizing "rap sessions" with them. We followed up these contacts by dropping by their homes and meeting with their families, letting them know about our facility and the intent of our program. Within a short time, the YB house became a magnet for Asian youth from the Crenshaw [California] community.

Our programs were based upon our belief that in our community and society, deep-rooted problems exist and that these problems could only be effectively changed by removing the core or tumor of these problems.

We acknowledged that history proves that the types of revolutionary changes we envisioned could only be brought about by people like all of us working together for a common goal.

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