In 1969, inspired by the Back Power Movement, Matsuda and her friend, Kazu Iijima (1918-2007), a survivor of the World War II Japanese internment camps, co-founded the New York-based AAA, one of the first U.S. East Coast pan-Asian organizations promoting awareness of pan-Asian identity and heritage, civil rights, and equality.

[9] In Salt Lake City, Utah, Matsuda managed to find a job creating ads for a retail store despite hostility toward people of Japanese heritage.

[9] Matsuda and Iijima, the co-founders of the AAA, had met in California prior to World War II and the upheaval caused by Executive Order 9066.

Unlike Iijima, Matsuda avoided the mass incarceration of Japanese families since she had moved inland to Utah prior to 1942.

They also protested the renewal of the United States-Japan Security Treaty which allowed for American military bases on Japanese soil, including Okinawa.

[16] Nevertheless, AAA had an impact on Asian American activism, which became increasingly professionalized with focuses including cultural/heritage preservation and civil rights.

[10] In an interviewed piece by Chisun Lee, Matsuda recounted her shocking experience and its connection to the traumatic memory of the Japanese-American Internment during Ward War II.