Published: June 7, 2026; Aithor: Julia Sonrisa
Address: 535 W, 114th St, New York, NY 10027, United States
Phone: +1 212-854-7309
Join us for a reading and reception to celebrate Aisha Fukushima’s new book, Mostly Water.
Presented by the Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project, in collaboration with the Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) at Columbia University.
Mostly Water is a poetry collection born from years of navigating social norms that fail to capture what it means to be mixed. Drawing on her lived experiences as a Black and Japanese person growing up between the U.S. and Japan, Aisha Fukushima explores what it means to live from mixed roots. Moving through her grandmother’s kitchen, hair salons, and post-WWII Afro-Japanese histories, Fukushima challenges narrow frameworks around racial belonging. Here, abundance replaces the racialized math of halves and quarters. From micro-aggressions to quiet prayers, each stanza is a lyric within a larger freedom song.
These poems are an opening — an offering for anyone who has ever searched for language spacious enough to hold who they truly are. We are, after all, mostly water — fluid, uncontainable, beyond measure.
Aisha Fukushima was the Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project’s (YKSP) first Artist in Residence in May 2025. Honoring Yuri Kochiyama’s praxis of ’radical hospitality’ and her legacy of providing people and communities with space and accommodations in her Harlem home, the YKSP Residency Program carries that spirit forward, supporting artists, scholars, and organizers in a dedicated Central Harlem space. We’re excited to support the culmination of her residency and work in the publication of Mostly Water this June.
Who: Aisha Fukushima is an award-winning singer, facilitator, and justice strategist who bridges art and activism to catalyze global change. A multilingual African American and Japanese artist, she creates liberatory workshops, immersive concerts, and cultural experiences rooted in equity, imagination, and collective healing. A four-time TEDx speaker and former U.S. Department of State Cultural Ambassador, her work has been featured by Oprah Magazine, SXSW EDU, Hulu, and NPR’s World Cafe. Currently based in Copenhagen, Aisha works internationally across the U.S., Europe, and beyond. Her forthcoming poetry collection, Mostly Water, will be released in June 2026.
Any questions? Contact us at ContactYKSP@yurikochiyama.com
Time: 6:00 pm EST
Free!
Detailed information and discussion of the event.