Collection 克里斯·饭岛和陈建文在专辑《背靠背》封面上，Henry Chu捐赠，美国华人博物馆（MOCA）馆藏
Chris Iijima, a lawyer, educator, legal scholar and musician was born in 1948 in New York City. In the late 60s he became involved in Asian American activism; co-founding the civil rights organization Asian Americans for Action. Along with Charlie Chin and Joanna Nobuko Miyamoto, he founded the band Yellow Pearl, which recorded the album “A Grain of sand: Music for the struggle of Asians in America” in 1973. He would reunite with Charlie Chin in 1982 to record a new album titled “Back to Back,” which was also an exploration into being Asian in America.
Iijima would go onto to receive a Juris Doctor degree from New York Law School in 1988. He would serve as a faculty member at 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. He continued to write articles about the discrimination of Asian Americans and other racial groups until his death in 2005 at the age of 57 due to a rare blood disease.
克里斯·饭岛（Chris Iijima）是一位律师、教育家、法律学者和音乐家，1948年出生于纽约市。60年代末，他参与了亚裔美国人激进主义运动，共同创立了民权组织----亚裔美国人行动组织。他和陈健文（Charlie Chin）、宫本信子（Joanna Nobuko Miyamoto）一起创立了乐队黄珍珠，并于1973年录制了《一粒沙：献给在美国奋斗的亚裔的歌》（A Grain of Sand: Music for the struggle by Asians in America）。1982年，他与陈健文重聚，录制了一张名为《背靠背》的新专辑，这也是对亚裔在美国的生活的一次探索。
饭岛于1988年从纽约法学院获得法学博士学位。然后在纽约大学法学院、西新英格兰法学院和夏威夷大学马诺阿分校威廉·S·理查森法学院任教。他一直坚持撰写关于亚裔美国人和其他种族群体所受歧视的文章，直到2005年，57岁的他死于一种罕见的血液疾病。
Countdown to the TCS NYC Marathon on November 3, 2019: 216 Days.
2019年是美国第一条横贯大陆铁路建成150周年，为了纪念第一批华人来美建设这条铁路所做出的巨大贡献， MOCA将其2019 TCS NYC Marathon的活动命名为 MOCA Spike 150 – Running Forward With Our Stories！ 鼓励大家通过马拉松公益跑，全国线上接力，以及一天一个故事的方式讲述150个华人的历史故事，敬请大家持续关注， 讲出华人自己的故事，回顾过去，立足现在，展望未来，共同书写美国历史，使之更加充实完整。