Subject: Old J-towns
At the 1998 Ties That Bind conference in LA, a point was made that we
should try to memorialize the former "J-towns", perhaps by museums or
memorial markers or some kind of historical designations so that
buildings, places, etc. don't just disappear, even though they may no
longer exist or thrive as they did in the past. What do you think?
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
> We should try to memorialize the former "J-towns", perhaps by
> museums or memorial markers or some kind of historical
> designations so that buildings, places, etc. don't just
> disappear, even though they may no longer exist or thrive as
> they did in the past.
I like that idea. It seems as though some of the
areas where the J-towns once were are either run down or out-of-the-way
places where people wouldn't really notice or care to visit.
But then it is sad to see them disappear completely. Maybe it would be
neat to memorialize the past and present J-towns in a book, with memories
and photos, past and present, along with maps of and addresses of land-
mark places. Sounds like a big job.
I've seen a little book about San Francisco Nihonmachi and
Murase's Little Tokyo: One Hundred Years in Pictures,
both of which are quite interesting. There's a book called
Japanese Americans by Paul Spickard that has an interesting portrait of
Seattle's pre-war J-town, but it lacks photos. Where are/were the others
located? Off the top of my head I can think of only what I've seen in
books or historical documents. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco,
Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose, Watsonville, Fresno, Del Rey, LA..
Was there one in Denver?
There's not a hint of the post-war community
around Clark/Division in Chicago anymore and the community that sprung
after that further up on Clark Street around Wrigley Field has pretty
much diminished aside from a few strongholds. And what about the areas
that weren't/aren't really designated or labeled J-towns but were/are
large community centers, such as places like Sawtelle, Venice, Crenshaw,
Gardena, Terminal Island, etc in and around Los Angeles? Are there any
other places like that?
I'm also curious about post-war communities
on the East Coast/Midwest. Were there other high-concentration areas
like Chicago in places like Detroit, Cleveland, Philly, etc.? Maybe if
there were some reference guide, it might spur people to visit these
places that they otherwise wouldn't?
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
> And what about the areas that weren't/aren't really designated or
> labeled J-towns but were/are large community centers, such as
> places like Sawtelle, Venice, Crenshaw, Gardena, Terminal Island,
> etc. in and around Los Angeles? Are there any other places like
> that?
I think there was an area in Los Angeles called Japan Flats, which is aroung
the Virgil Avenue area in Hollywood? And there was an "uptown" J-town in LA
which has now evolved into Koreatown. Something like "Maruyama Uptown
Maaketo" comes to mind.
Although there was no business area (I think the previous post is refering to communities
that included a business district) there were "communities" where Japanese
Americans tended to dominate...in another world, they would have been
ghettoes if they happened in an urgan area. But also in rural areas, too.
I think there are about 15 families that once lived in an area of Lawndale
near the present-day Gardena and just north of El Camino college in Torrance
in California and called it "Kurata Ranch" after a Japanese guy named Kurata
who was subleasing small farm plots from an English landowner - I think the
name was Winchester or something. All the kids ended up at Leuzinger High
School in Hawthorne. The families intermarried, and did things as a group,
such as mochitsuki or hop into a pickup truck for a trip into "town" which
would be Little Tokyo.
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
> Where are/were the others located? Off the top of my head I can
> think of only what I've seen in books or historical documents.
> Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Sacramento ...
Anyone on Ties-Talk from or have relatives in Walnut Grove, California???
The 2/10/00 evening edition of the Asahi Shimbun (page 19) carried an
article (with photo) on Walnut Grove, California (located near Sacramento)
discussing the history of its prewar and postwar Japanese community.
The article mentioned that the population of the Walnut Grove Japanese
community at its height just prior to WW2 was approximately 2000.
Today the community mostly consists of just a handful of retired nisei.
Several sansei originally from that area were interviewed. One sansei woman
said that although she is very sad and concerned that the once thriving
Nikkei community will disappear if no one returns and lives there, she
has no intention of returning and living there. I find that interesting.
Perhaps it is like mochitsuki. If you've never experienced making it by hand
or have only done it a few times, it is a lot of fun. But if you remember
all the preparation involved (washing the kome, soaking it, getting up early
in the morning around 2 or 3 am to start steaming the first of many batches
for pounding later, I prefer buying it at the market.
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
> Were there other high-concentration areas like Chicago in
> places like Detroit, Cleveland, Philly, etc.?
There is a "small" concentration of JA's who
settled in Cleveland, Ohio after camp. My family happens to be one
of them. There is still some community activity, mostly thru the
local JACL, and a Buddhist church, but it also seems to be fading.
I guess, I didn't help things by moving from Cleveland to LA either.
Maybe like the analogy of mochitsuki, shoveling snow in the
winter and driving in it gets tiring after a while. Our driveway at
home use to be about a 150 feet, so that was a good morning
workout after a significant snowfall. Once you come to California,
you get spoiled with the warm sunny weather, so it's harder to go back.
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
> Was there [a J-town] in Denver?
There were Japanese immigrants coming to
Colorado as early as the late 1800s. They were initially engaged
in agriculture but as the population slowly grew, small boarding
houses, restaurants and drygoods businesses began to develop. I
don't have the figures right off-hand but if someone out there in
email land is really interested I can get figures for you.
Prior to WWII there were 2-3 Japanese newspapers in the Denver area.
With the impending incarceration of Japanese from the west coast,
Gov. Ralph Carr was one of the few govenors who allowed voluntary
evacuees into the state (interestingly, I have heard that the state of
Utah, where some of the JACL leaders were was closed to west coast
Japanese because the Japanese and Japanese Americans already
living there did not want the stability of their communities to be
jeopardized by "too many" Japanese in the state).
There was a west coast influx of JAs into the state of Colorado and
they were soon followed by the 10,000 internees at the Amache
concentration camp in Granada. After the camp was closed many
people came to Denver to wait out a period until it was safe to
return to the west coast. Although many returned, there was still
a sizeable JA community left. That legacy continues today and
people are always surprised that there is a lot more going on in
Colorado. In spite of the outmarriage rate the community
is still thriving. There are also many Japan businesses located
here and there is a Consulate assigned to the Rocky Mountain
region.
Lane Hirabayashi at Univ of Colorado-Boulder is writing a book
on the post WWII resettlement period in Denver.
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
> Off the top of my head I can think of only what I've seen in
> books or historical documents. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco,
> Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose, Watsonville, Fresno, Del Rey, LA..
i just returned from a visit to fresno (actually fresno, fowler, selma,
and del rey) where i visited with relatives (and learned a lot about my
family history and that of the community that used to exist there). it
was kind of spooky, almost like a ghost town of memories. the hangers on
of rundown businesses around the old fresno j-town, the obliteration - aside
from a couple of landmarks such as the buddhist church and a couple of
buildings that still stand but are now mexican owned - of the del rey
ja community, the seeming disintegration of all but a couple ja farming
families in an area that was once completely saturated. and to think of
how active my family was back in those days... now they're just a part of
the leftovers of "glory" days passed (that is, glory in the sense of the
once thriving community and not necessarily the dreadfully hard work that
is farming). it made me sad in a way. but at the same time it was very
inspirational. i read masumoto's "country voices" at my grandma's house
a couple years back, and actually going there and hearing these stories
firsthand really brought it home for me. all the things i read in the
book suddenly made sense. i can't help but think of how this all relates
to the persistence of the ja community at large, farmers or not.
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
> Where are/were the others located? Off the top of my head
> I can think of only what I've seen in books or historical
> documents. Seattle, Portland ...
The Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center has a free pamphlet, "A Glimpse of
Portland's Japantown 1940", which is a guide for a walking tour
of the area. It has a map with the locations and descriptions of
the businesses that existed before the Internment. Write them and
they can probably send you a copy:
Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center
117 NW 2nd Avenue
Portland OR 97209
(503) 224-1458
Today, the former site of Portland's Japantown is a bit of a rundown
area of the city, with a nearby homeless men's shelter and health
clinic, but gentrification is starting to make its way in at the
margins, with renovated loft development in former warehouses.
The ONLC set up shop there a couple of years ago, and has a few
Japan-related businesses and monuments as neighbours:
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
> Refer to the various pre-war and postwar Nikkei telephone books
> and yearbooks to get an idea of the various Nikkeijin communities
> throughout the mainland USA.
But where would you find them? As a kid, I remember my dad tossed
out a lot stuff in the trash when we clean out the attic long ago in my
house in Strongsville, Ohio. I remember seeing camp newsletters,
etc. I wish I knew enough then to want to save them.
I don't think the JA population in my midwest city was large enough to have
their own phone book ... maybe a directory of a few pages?
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
The New Year's edition of the Rafu Shimpo had an article about a
gentleman who was doing research on the history of LA's Nihonjinmachi.
Based on the old yearbooks and other material, he made a map of how
Nihonjinmachi looked in 1940 and 1960.
He was able to figure out where most of the businesses in 1940 were located
by referring to the 1940 yearbook published by the Rafu Shimpo.
I am sure if many of you look in your or your parents garage, trunk or
whatever, you may be able to find an old year book or Japanese community
telephone book, etc. from the prewar or postwar era or other historical
material.
One can probably get a general idea of most of the various Japanese
communities scattered throughout the nation by looking through many
of those old yearbooks and Japanese community telephone books from
the prewar and postwar (1950s and 1960s) as they try to include a
nationwide listing of Nikkeijin and businesses.
By looking at the names and addresses of the people one can really feel that
most of the communities were agricultural-based as many of the individual
addresses of people list a route number instead of a street and house number
as their address.
In adddition, the prefecture where the person or his family is from is
also listed along with their name and address.
Many of individual business advertisements listed also include the
prefecture from where the owner is from.
Check the trunk and storage area of your parent's or your grandparent's
house. You might be surprised at the interesting things they have.
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
Besides checking the garage and trunk for various things, check the research
room of the museum across the street from the old Nishi Hongwanji in LA or
perhaps the archives at UCLA. There is a good possibility they may have
copies of those old yearbooks and telephone books published before and after
the war.
In looking through those old Nikkei yearbooks published during the prewar
and postwar period, many of them attempted to list the names, addresses and
phone numbers of known Japanese families and businesses throughout the
mainland USA. Although far from perfect in the listings included, I think
it will give the reader an overall idea of where Nikkeijin lived.
Those telephone books that I`ve seen are divided according to region and
city or town.
I noticed that a good percentage of the advertising space is bought up by
the big issei farmers of that era.
Although not of the entire mainland USA, one of the yearbooks we have at
home was printed in commemoration of the 2600th anniversary (皇紀二千六百年)
of the founding of Japan in 1940.
It was published in LA by the Sangyo Nippon, a newspaper printed especially
for the agricultural sector of the southern California Nikkei society.
According to the introduction written by editor (can`t recall his name at
the moment), he went on a fact finding trip up and down the length of
California visiting various issei farmers and the area where they lived.
Besides discussing various agricultural crops and farming techniques, he
discusses the future of the Japanese in the USA. It also contains many short
biographies and advertisements of issei farmers and other various businesses
up and down the coast.
The prewar yearbooks and telephone directories printed by the Rafu Shimpo in
LA as well as those published periodically by the various kenjinkais all
contain a great deal of helpful information to help one get an idea where
many of thesee former communities were located and what kind of businesses
were there.
The Rafu Shimpo year book and directory printed in 1940 and also in
commemoration of the 2600th anniversary of the founding of Japan also has
some interesting statistics on the young (at that time) nisei generation, in
addiion to a collection of compositions in Japanese written by young nisei
students enrolled at the various Japanese schools on what the 2600th
anniversary of the founding of Japan meant to them. Those compositions are
very interesting reading. I am sure that their parents and teachers checked
the contents and edited greatly the final drafts prior to submitting it for printing.
Subject: Re: Old J-towns
Here is an article on old J-towns from the Chicago Tribune:
`Japantown' communities are fading fast
By V. Dion Haynes
At the turn of the 20th Century, Little Tokyo in downtown Los
Angeles was among 40 "Japantowns" in the United States, bustling with
an array of businesses and attractions and serving as hubs for newly
arrived Japanese. Now it is one of three.
Since its heyday before World War II, Little Tokyo has shrunk from 120
square blocks to 15, and its population has dropped to about 1,500
from 30,000.
The situation in Little Tokyo and in Japantowns in San Francisco
and San Jose illustrates an overall decline in the population of
Japanese-Americans across the U.S. While other Asian groups are
experiencing rapid growth, 2000 census figures show that
Japanese-Americans number just under 800,000, a 6 percent drop over 10
years.
"Historically, this has been where the Japanese-Americans have lived.
But everybody is so spread out now," said Chris Komai, spokesman for
the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. "Our challenge
to bring everybody together is even harder."
*** Reasons for decline ***
Experts attribute the lower population figures to several factors:
- Japanese immigration has slowed dramatically in the past several
decades, the result of the transformation of the Japanese economy to
technological from agricultural.
- Upwardly mobile Japanese-Americans of the past generation, like
their counterparts in Japan, have delayed marriage and had fewer
children. And those who do marry often wed non-Japanese, producing
biracial children who may have been unwilling to identify themselves
on census forms as Japanese-Americans.
- The success of Japanese-Americans, experts say, is a main factor
driving the three remaining Japantowns to extinction.
- Many third- and fourth-generation Japanese-Americans have
established Buddhist temples, churches, restaurants and grocery stores
elsewhere and don't feel the need to visit the Japantowns. At the same
time, Japantowns are shrinking fast, particularly in San Jose and San
Francisco, where blocks have been gobbled up to make way for lofts and
offices for high-tech firms.
Membership in such traditional organizations as the Japanese American
Citizens League gets smaller every year, and some older Japanese fear
that once they die their cultural institutions will disappear with them.
*** `This was a lively place' ***
"In the old days, this was a lively place," said Harry Honda, 81, who
edited the Pacific Citizen Weekly newspaper in Little Tokyo from 1952
to 1990. "This was the heart of the Japanese in Southern California."
With its elegant hotels and shopping mall, Little Tokyo now is more a
tourist destination than a Japanese-American neighborhood. A Buddhist
temple and a block of storefronts are about all that remain from the
original Little Tokyo.
Gold letters stamped in the sidewalk along East First Street document
the community's history: "1890 First Japanese immigrant opens American
style restaurant"; "1907 Hotel Empire"; "1910 Kii Shokai Foods"; "1921
Japanese Clinic."
Honda has been helping preserve Pacific Citizen Weekly's archives at
the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. Noting some
vacant buildings, businesses operated by other ethnic groups and the
loss of land to outside development, Honda said it is "just trying to
keep what's left alive."
The population decline is happening even in Hawaii, where
Japanese-Americans are the second-largest group behind whites. The
number of Japanese-Americans there declined to 201,764 from 247,486 in
1990, dropping their share of the population to 17 percent from 22 percent.
"From 1955 to about 1980, the majority of dentists, schoolteachers and
elected officials [in Hawaii] were Japanese. That is no
longer the case," said Gary Fuller, director of the population studies
program at the University of Hawaii.
The latest figures from the U.S. census show that the
Japanese-American population across the country dropped 6 percent, to
796,700 in 2000 from 847,562 in 1990.
Declines occurred in 15 states, including Alaska, North Dakota,
Hawaii, California and Illinois, where the Japanese-American
population dropped by nearly 7 percent. Japanese-Americans number
20,379 in Illinois, down from 21,831 in 1990.
Japanese-Americans were the only Asian group to experience a decline.
The Chinese-American population jumped to 2.4 million from 1.6
million; Vietnamese to 1.1 million from 614,547; and Koreans to 1
million from 798,849 over a decade.
In 1998, the latest year for which statistics are available, 5,138
Japanese immigrated to the U.S., according to the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. That compares with 36,000 Chinese, 17,000
Vietnamese and 14,000 Koreans.
At the height of the Japanese migration, from 1901 to 1910, an average
of 13,000 people moved here every year.
*** Americanization of Japanese ***
"People in my generation -- Baby Boomers -- have become very Americanized.
We've delayed marriage in pursuit of our careers, and many, many more
opportunities have opened up for women," said Don Nakanishi, director
of the UCLA Asian-American Studies Center.
The Japanese began their migration in the late 1800s, contracted out
by officials in their country to work sugar plantations in Hawaii.
Around the start of the 20th Century, many Japanese headed for
California, Washington and Oregon in search of a better way of life.
What many found was poverty and discrimination.
Many of the Japanese clustered together, building their own
communities and institutions.
Then during World War II, the Japanese had to abandon their
communities when the U.S. government forced them into prison camps.
After the war, the government further dispersed the Japanese by
encouraging them to take menial jobs in Chicago, Cleveland, Atlanta
and elsewhere.
Eventually, many returned to the West to re-establish their Japantowns.
The communities in the 1950s and '60s made strides to recapture their
former glory, but since then have been diminished by outside
development.
Efforts are under way to preserve the Japantowns and to draw young
Japanese-Americans to the areas.
The California state Senate recently passed a bill that would provide
grants of $500,000 to help the Japantowns restore historically
significant buildings.
The bill, pending in the Assembly, also would broaden the criteria
used to determine which buildings can receive historical preservation status.
"We welcome this bill," said Komai, the spokesman for the Japanese
American National Museum in Little Tokyo. "We could use the money to
give some of these buildings a face-lift, for security or to market the area."
Meanwhile, Japantown officials in San Francisco are hinging the area's
future survival on jazz and comedy clubs, theaters, sporting events
and other activities aimed at young people.
"It's not going to be a community in the same sense as it was in the
past," said Rosalyn Tonai, executive director of the National Japanese
American Historical Society in San Francisco and member of the
Japantown planning task force.
"We have to gear ourselves to young people. Without young people, you
don't have vitality."
