The 2002 holiday issue: Japantowns and ethnic enclaves

Vol. 135, No. 11, December 2002. 120 pages. View this issue

Ethnic enclaves were the subject of this 120-page holiday issue, with contributors writing about the neighborhoods that shaped them. Bill Watanabe traced Little Tokyo’s past and future, Gil Asakawa described Denver’s Sakura Square, and Emily Murase talked with childhood friends about growing up in San Francisco’s Japantown. Bob Santos wrote on Seattle’s International District, and Andrew Yan and Andrew Leong covered Chinatowns in San Francisco, New York, Vancouver and Boston.

Elsewhere in the issue, Floyd Mori recalled Salt Lake City’s Nihonmachi, and Lillian Kimura wrote about New York, a Nikkei community without a Little Tokyo. Harry K. Honda wrote about California towns that no longer exist, and Fusako Yamamoto profiled the Togasaki family. Luis Yamakawa described the Japanese Peruvian experience. Holiday greetings from JACL chapters, including Spokane, Salinas Valley and Twin Cities, fill about 60 pages.

What’s in this issue

In-Depth

• Idaho on the Range, by Maya Hata Lemmon, page 6. The author recounts moving from the Bay Area to Twin Falls, Idaho over 20 years ago as a Vista volunteer, describing the region’s history, small Nikkei community, and her family’s roots as Buddhist ministers who served congregations in Vacaville and Oakland before and after World War II internment. She reflects on New Year’s traditions, the scattered Japanese American community in Idaho, and her hope to introduce mochi-tsuki to the newly formed Sawtooth JACL chapter.
• Chinatown Struggles in San Francisco, New York and Vancouver, by Andrew Yan, page 10. This article examines the urban problems facing three major Chinatowns in North America: San Francisco’s housing crisis amid the dot-com boom, New York’s economic devastation after September 11th, and Vancouver’s demographic and economic shifts as wealthier Chinese immigrants bypass the neighborhood. Community organizations like Chinatown CDC and Asian Americans for Equality are working to address these challenges through housing initiatives, youth programs, and revitalization efforts.
• Denver’s Sakura Square: Our Own Tiny Tokyo, by Gil Asakawa, page 13. The author describes Denver’s Sakura Square, a small but significant hub for the city’s Japanese American community since 1972, comparing it to larger enclaves like San Francisco’s Japantown and L.A.’s Little Tokyo. He reflects on his family’s connection to the square, growing up in Tokyo and Virginia, and how virtual communities like the Ties-Talk email group now supplement physical ethnic enclaves in maintaining cultural connections.
• Creating Traditions Under a Full Moon, by Debbie Wei, page 15. The author recounts her family’s Mid-Autumn Festival traditions growing up in Philadelphia’s Chinatown and her transformative experience celebrating the holiday in Hong Kong, which deepened her connection to Chinese culture. She describes how a youth conversation led to the creation of Philadelphia’s annual Mid-Autumn Festival, now drawing thousands and preserving cultural traditions for new generations.
• Seattle’s International District: A History of Activism and Change, by Bob Santos, page 18. The author, a longtime Filipino activist, describes the decades-long fight to preserve Seattle’s International District against encroaching development including the Kingdome stadium, freeways, and various public projects. He details the creation of organizations like Inter*Im that secured housing and services for the community, as well as ongoing tensions like the McDonald’s controversy and Uwajimaya Village development.
• Boston’s Chinatown Fights Gentrification with Liberty Place Development, by Andrew Leong, page 28. The article details Boston Chinatown’s history of environmental injustice from urban renewal projects and describes the current battle against the Liberty Place luxury housing development, which received zoning variances despite community opposition. Activists have filed the first-ever lawsuit by Chinatown against the Zoning Board of Appeals as gentrification threatens to displace low-income residents.
• Where is Home?, by Sachi Seko, page 29. In a lyrical personal essay, the author reflects on memories of prewar Little Tokyo, the trauma of wartime internment, and her attempts to reconnect with her childhood home decades later only to find it transformed and unfamiliar. She also writes about aging, illness, and treasured friendships, including with fellow writer Bill Hosokawa, whose journalism she praises for capturing the vanished world of Japantowns.
• L.A.’s Little Tokyo: Past and Future, by Bill Watanabe, page 30. Through a fictionalized composite interview with a 100-year-old Nikkei resident, the author traces the history of Little Tokyo from its early days through internment, postwar redevelopment, and into the present. He describes the Little Tokyo Service Center’s current projects renovating the historic Far East Café building and advocating for a community recreation center.
• Growing Up in J-Town: Home-Girls and -Boys, by Emily Murase, page 33. The author interviews childhood friends Sandi Murakami, Akemi Honda, and Wilbur Tanaka about growing up in San Francisco’s Japantown through the JCYC daycamp program and community events like church bazaars and festivals. They discuss what they gained from the experience and express both hope and worry about Japantown’s future as businesses close and demographics shift.
• Non-profit CDCs: Neighborhood Heroes or Perpetuators of Poverty?, by Scott Ito, page 35. The article challenges misconceptions about community development corporations (CDCs), tracing their history from 1960s civil rights-era “community action programs” to today’s sophisticated economic development organizations. It highlights Little Tokyo Service Center’s proposed recreation center and AAFE’s Rebuild Chinatown Initiative as examples of CDCs successfully revitalizing neighborhoods through community-driven planning.
• A Center for Pioneers: Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo During the 1960s-1970s, by Jim Matsuoka, page 38. The author recounts the 1969 founding of the Pioneer Center in Little Tokyo, a gathering place for elderly Issei created through a partnership between community elder Masao Nishimura and young Sansei volunteers including the author and Mo Nishida. He reflects on the hardships faced by Issei after internment and their enduring spirit that shaped Little Tokyo’s identity.
• A Pioneer Center for Little Tokyo’s Elderly, by Jim Matsuoka, page 38. This piece details how young Sansei activists and elderly Issei like Masao Nishimura worked together to establish the Pioneer Center senior gathering place in Little Tokyo in 1969, overcoming skepticism about the sustainability of dues-based funding. The center provided crucial social connection for isolated Issei who remained rooted to the neighborhood despite its postwar decline.
• How the Nikkei Evacuation of Hawaii Almost Happened: Examining the Book ‘By Order of the President’, by Ike Hatchimonji, page 39. Based on Greg Robinson’s book, this article examines why Hawaii’s Japanese American population was not mass-incarcerated like their West Coast counterparts, crediting General Delos Emmons’ resistance to pressure from Roosevelt and others despite the economic importance of Japanese labor to Hawaii’s sugar industry. The piece details the complex political maneuvering between military officials, government agencies, and the president regarding potential evacuation plans.
• Seattle’s Nihonmachi: Two Eras, by Budd Fukei, page 42. The author describes Seattle’s prewar Nihonmachi as a diverse, hardworking community and details the hysteria following Pearl Harbor, including his own interview with a bureau chief who advocated locking up all Japanese Americans. He also chronicles the postwar Nihonmachi II era, including the North American Post and Northwest Times newspapers and community sports leagues that helped rebuild the community.
• Salt Lake City’s Nihonmachi, by Floyd Mori, page 43. The national JACL president recounts childhood memories of Salt Lake City’s Nihonmachi business district, which developed around 1907 and grew significantly during WWII internment when Japanese communities in Utah tripled. The neighborhood was formally disbanded in 1966 when the Salt Palace Convention Center was built, leaving only a few institutions like the Buddhist Church and Japanese Church of Christ as remnants.
• New York and Environs: A Nikkei Community Without a Little Tokyo, by Lillian Kimura, page 46. The former national JACL president describes New York’s lack of a traditional Japantown enclave, tracing the small prewar Japanese population’s growth and dispersal throughout Manhattan, Queens, and New Jersey suburbs. She discusses community institutions like the New York Buddhist Church and Japanese American Association, noting younger Japanese Americans’ declining participation in ethnic organizations.
• Sacramento’s Early Nihonmachi, by Hiroshi Kashiwagi, page 47. The author shares childhood memories of visiting Sacramento’s Nihonmachi from nearby Loomis, including a Wakayama-ken boardinghouse, favorite shops like the New Eagle Drug Store, and Agnes Hospital named after opera singer Agnes Miyakawa. He recalls specific merchants and community figures who shaped the prewar Japanese American business district.
• California Towns That No Longer Exist But Still Breathe History, by Harry K. Honda, page 50. The former Pacific Citizen editor documents numerous vanished California towns where Japanese American farming and fishing communities once thrived before the 1913 Alien Land Law, including Burnett, Port Los Angeles, and various Los Angeles County farming settlements. He also describes Imperial Valley’s early Japanese agricultural pioneers and the labor camps that supported dekasegi workers.
• Racial Harmony in Mukilteo, Washington, by Mas Odoi, page 53. The article describes a monument erected in 2000 commemorating the excellent relations between Japanese sawmill workers and residents of Mukilteo, Washington in the early 1900s. It details the tight-knit Issei community’s activities before the sawmill closed during the Depression and how many Nisei went on to serve with distinction in WWII, earning respect that transformed wartime hatred into appreciation.
• Canadian Life and Times in Surrey, B.C., up to the End of WWII, by Mike Hoshiko, page 53. The article chronicles the small prewar Japanese Canadian farming community in Surrey, British Columbia, which organized a strawberry co-op that became the center of social and educational activities including Japanese language classes. Following the 1942 evacuation, Surrey families who worked sugar beet farms never returned, and the community effectively disappeared from the area.
• Working in Little Tokyo in the 1960s, by Frank Hirata, page 54. The author recounts his decade working as executive secretary to the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Southern California in 1960s Little Tokyo, describing the cohesive community leadership and various businesses including banks, restaurants, hotels, and newspapers that no longer exist. He credits pioneers like Eiji Tanabe, Taro Kawa, and Joseph Ito with laying groundwork for institutions like JACCC.
• Stockton Home-Girl, by Shizue Siegel, page 55. The author reflects on childhood visits to her grandmother’s hotel in Stockton’s deteriorating postwar Japantown neighborhood, where she learned compassion for homeless and marginalized people from her grandmother’s example. A recent bus tour to Stockton with Nelson Nagai revealed the close-knit multiracial community that existed there despite poverty, offering lessons about connection across social divides.
• Japan Through American Eyes, by Francis Y. Sogi, page 58. Drawing on decades of professional experience with Japan, the author examines the fundamental cultural and social structural differences between Japan and America, arguing that Japanese American communities inherited cultural values that don’t always fit American individualistic society. He concludes that Japanese Americans are uniquely positioned to serve as a bridge for better understanding between the two nations.
• The Japanese Peruvian Experience, by Luis Yamakawa, page 59. Born in Lima in 1933, the author describes growing up in Peru’s Japanese community, including Japanese language schools, the wartime confiscation of Japanese-owned property and businesses, and his family’s rebuilding through the traditional tanimoshi financial cooperative system. He also discusses the modern dekasegi phenomenon of Japanese Peruvians moving to Japan for economic opportunities.
• Little Tokyo: Changing Times, Changing Faces, by P.C. Staff, page 67. This article announces the upcoming third publication in the Japanese American Historical Society of Southern California’s Nanka Nikkei Voices series, focused on Little Tokyo’s history, people, and institutions. It also promotes the previously published second volume and details submission guidelines for community members wishing to contribute stories.
• The Togasaki Family: Remarkable Pioneers, by Fusako Yamamoto, page 70. This extensive profile chronicles the extraordinary Togasaki family, whose immigrant parents Kikumatsu and Shige raised nine accomplished children including three pioneering women physicians—Kazue, Yoshiye, and Teru—who provided medical care in internment camps and dedicated their careers to community service. The family also included founding JACL members and successful professionals who exemplified public service and compassion.

Commentary

• Kodomo no Tameni: For the Sake of the Children, by Joyce Nako, page 19. The author reflects on the contentious debate over building a Recreation Center in Little Tokyo’s First Street North area, expressing concern over factionalism among community leaders. She discusses generational transitions, recent losses of community figures like Patsy Mink and Yuji Ichioka, and hopes for younger generations to continue community service traditions.

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