Little Tokyo Historic District | |
 The Far East Café (Chop Suey), a landmark 1896 Beaux-Arts building | |
  | |
| Location | Los Angeles,California, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 34°3′2″N118°14′22″W / 34.05056°N 118.23944°W /34.05056; -118.23944 |
| Built | 1942 |
| Architect | Edgar Cline, Et al. |
| NRHP reference No. | 86001479[1][2] |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | August 22, 1986 |
| Designated NHLD | June 12, 1995[3] |
Little Tokyo (Japanese:リトル・トーキョー;Hepburn;Litoru Tōkyō), also known asLittle Tokyo Historic District, is an ethnicallyJapanese Americandistrict indowntown Los Angeles and the heart of the largest Japanese-American population in North America.[4] It is the largest and most populous of only three officialJapantowns in the United States, all of which are inCalifornia (the other two areJapantown, San Francisco, andJapantown, San Jose).[citation needed] Founded around the beginning of the 20th century, the area, sometimes calledLil' Tokyo,J-Town,Shō-Tōkyō (小東京), is the cultural center forJapanese Americans inSouthern California. It was declared aNational Historic Landmark District in 1995.[3]
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 played a pivotal role in the first large wave of Japanese Immigration to the United States as the Japanese were heavily recruited to serve as 'cheap labor' in place of the now excluded Chinese laborers.[5]
One of the people influenced by this first wave of Japanese Immigration was Hamanosuke Shigeta, a Japanese seaman who settled in southeast Los Angeles, an area which would eventually become Little Tokyo.[6] There Shigeta established the first Japanese-owned business in LA, Kame Restaurant, alongFirst Street. Attracted by the restaurant and nearby demands for labor, other Japanese immigrant men followed suit as they settled along First Street in nearby boarding houses.[7]
The first Japanese boarding house in Los Angeles was established by Sanjuro Mizuno, who opened the Santa Fe Boarding House in 1898 to cater to Japanese laborers.[8] To house the wave of new immigrants coming to Little Tokyo, early immigrants also opened more of them.
By the early 1900s, the Japanese population in Little Tokyo had reached a population of around 3,000. It jumped to 10,000 following the1906 San Francisco Earthquake, which convinced many Japanese to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles.[7]
In 1907,The Gentleman's Agreement was signed between Japan and the United States in which Japan voluntarily restricted the emigration of Japanese laborers, allowing only families of current residents to immigrate, in exchange for the United States to ensure no discrimination against the Japanese people in the US.[9] The implementation of the agreement led to an influx of women who joined family or husbands as new brides in Little Tokyo. As a result, Little Tokyo saw a growth in community and the establishment of a commercial district.[7] By 1908, around 90 Japanese-run boarding houses could be found throughout Los Angeles.[8]
In 1909, Little Tokyo was described as "bounded bySan Pedro, First and Requena Streets andCentral Avenue. TheLos Angeles Times added: "It has a population of about 3,500 Japanese ... there are 10,000 Japanese in the city who make this section their rendezvous."[10]
The area was a magnet for immigrating Japanese until theExclusion Act of 1924 halted any further migration. Shops were along First Street, and vegetable markets were along Central Avenue to the south.Japanese Americans were a significant ethnic group in the vegetable trade, due to the number of successful Japanese Americantruck farms across Southern California.
The East First Street area is where the first Japanese institutions, associations, and establishments were founded in Los Angeles asIssei (first generation Japanese immigrants) began to congregate in the area. The first Japanese religious institution founded in Little Tokyo was the Japanese Episcopal Mission of Los Angeles, now Century United Methodist Church, founded in June 1896 by a group of 5issei from southern Japan.[11] Other religious institutions continued to be founded: the Koyasan Buddhist Temple (1912), Japanese Union Church (1923), and Hompa Hongwaji Buddhist Temple (1925).[7]
The growing population in Little Tokyo was supplemented by the establishment of primary, secondary, and trade schools.[7] A large amount of trade schools in Little Tokyo were sewing schools. The largest was theRafu Yossai Gakuen which taught sewing skills toIssei women.[8]
During this time period various newspapers catered towards Japanese Americans in Los Angeles were founded. The first Japanese newspaper in the United States wasRafu Shimpo, founded in Little Tokyo in 1903 and which continues to operate.[7]
Founded during this time wererotating savings and credit associations known astanomoshiko, which provided funding towards emerging business ventures in Little Tokyo.[7]
Community leaders in the 1920s and 1930s established local entities of prominent Japanese American associations such as the Central Japanese Association,Japanese American Citizen's League (JACL), and the Japanese American Chamber of Commerce. Concurrently, these leaders worked with Japan to establishkenjinkai or mutual aid societies each associated to one of the Japanese Prefectures.[7] These associations would provide mutual aid and social opportunities to Japanese families that had immigrated from the same prefecture represented by the association.[12] By 1940, the breadth ofkenjinkai covered 40/46 Japanese Prefectures.[7]
In 1941, Little Tokyo reached its peak population with approximately 30,000 Japanese Americans living in Little Tokyo. The 1941 Pearl Harbor bombing brought an end to the increase in Japanese American population in Little Tokyo. Theincarceration of Japanese Americans duringWorld War II emptied Little Tokyo.[13]
Beginning in 1942, after the city's Japanese population was rounded up and "evacuated" toinland concentration camps, a large number of African Americans from theSouth moved to Los Angeles to find work in the labor-starved defense industry. Its share in theSecond Great Migration almost tripled Little Tokyo's pre-war population, with some 80,000 new arrivals taking up residence there. For a brief time, the area became known as Bronzeville, asAfrican Americans and alsoNative Americans andLatinos moved into the vacated properties and opened up nightclubs, restaurants, and other businesses. Prohibited from buying and renting in most parts of the city byrestrictive covenants, the area soon became severely overcrowded. A single bathroom was often shared by up to 40 people and one room could house as many as 16 occupants; people frequently shared "hot beds," sleeping in shifts. Poor housing conditions helped spread communicable illnesses like tuberculosis and venereal disease. Crimes like robberies, rapes, and hit-and-run accidents increased, and in May and June 1943 Latino and some African American residents of Bronzeville were attacked by whites in theZoot Suit race riots.
In 1943, officials bowed to pressure from frustrated residents and proposed building temporary housing in nearbyWillowbrook, but the majority-white residents of the unincorporated city resisted the plans. In 1944, 57 Bronzeville buildings were condemned as unfit for habitation and 125 ordered repaired or renovated; approximately 50 of the evicted families were sent to theJordan Downs housing complex. In 1945, many defense industry jobs disappeared and the workers moved elsewhere in search of new employment. Others were pushed out when Japanese Americans began to return and white landlords chose not to renew leases with their wartime tenants.[14]
Following the War, many previous Japanese residents returned to Little Tokyo to continue managing businesses by purchasing Bronzeville business leases.[7] Albeit smaller, a commercial core still managed to exist in Little Tokyo. Due to lack of housing in Little Tokyo, many Japanese Americans returning from the camps moved into apartments and boarding houses in the neighborhoods surroundingdowntown Los Angeles. Notably,Boyle Heights, just east of Little Tokyo, had a large Japanese American population in the 1950s (as it had before theinternment) until the arrival ofMexican andLatino immigrants replaced most of them. The post-war Japanese-American population in Little Tokyo had become only one-third of its pre-war population.[7]
ManyIssei andNisei who had previously owned large businesses or were heavily involved in agriculture now returned with little resources to work in civil service or other simple jobs. Concurrently, a large redevelopment plan was put in place to be enacted in the early 1950s, but due to a lack of state funding and wealth in the Japanese-American community following three years of internment, the plan fell to stagnation.[15]
Following the construction there of theLos Angeles Police Department headquarters in 1953, Little Tokyo's commercial area shrunk by one fourth from its original size. 1,000 residents were displaced to other parts of Los Angeles. The current site ofParker Center, the LAPD's former headquarters, was the original site of the Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple.[16] The south edge of the block where Parker Center stands was part of the First Street business strip of shops. The warehouses and new condominiums to the east of Little Tokyo were once residential areas of the district.
Similar urban development would continue in the 1960s and 1970s, further shrinking the extent of the coverage of Little Tokyo.[7]
In the 1970s, a redevelopment movement started as Japanese corporations expanded overseas operations and many of them set up their U.S. headquarters in theLos Angeles area. Named the Little Tokyo Project, this movement resulted in the opening of several new shopping plazas and hotels opened, along with branches of some major Japanese banks. Although this redevelopment resulted in many new buildings and shopping centers, there are still some of the original Little Tokyo buildings and restaurants, especially along First Street.[17] The Little Tokyo Project would transform Little Tokyo into its present version: an area bounded byLos Angeles Street,Alameda Street,Third Street, and half a block north from First Street.[18]
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During the 1970s and 1980s, artists began to move into nearby aging warehouse spaces in the area, forming a hidden community in the industrialized area. Al's Bar, Gorky's, the Atomic Cafe andLA Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) are some well-known sites.[17]
Land use has been a contentious issue in Little Tokyo due to its history, the proximity to theLos Angeles Civic Center neighborhood, the role of Los Angeles as a site of business between Japan and America, and the increasing influx of residents into theArts District. Unlike a traditionalethnic enclave, there are relatively few Japanese residents in the area. Even so, the Japanese-American community was politicized by the internment andredress effort, which, along with the global and local growth of overseas Japanese investment, has assured that Little Tokyo has continued to exist as a tourist attraction, community center, and home to Japanese-American senior citizens and others.
During its inception in 1980, the Weller Court mall was opposed by some people in the community because it redeveloped a strip of family-owned small businesses. Community activists established First Street as a historic district in 1986. In 2004, they helped reopen the Far East Cafe, an acknowledged community hub.
Little Tokyo continues to develop and change with the general development of the greater Los Angeles Area through a range of ordinances, construction, and coalitions.[18]Sustainable Little Tokyo was founded in 2013 as an attempt to guide this development in a sustainable manner. The 2024 announcement of First North Residences and the Go For Broke Plaza, promises to provide essential housing units while serving as a permanent home for the Go For Broke National Education Center, a nonprofit dedicated to educating the public about the courage and sacrifices ofJapanese-American soldiers.[19][20]
At its peak, Little Tokyo had approximately 30,000 Japanese Americans living in the area. Little Tokyo is still a cultural focal point for Los Angeles's Japanese American population.[21] It is mainly a work, cultural, religious, restaurant and shopping district, because Japanese Americans today are likely to live in nearby cities such asTorrance,Gardena, andMonterey Park, as well as theSawtelle district in theWestside of Los Angeles. However, the recent boom in downtown residential construction is changing the nature of Little Tokyo.[22]
What is left of the original Little Tokyo can be found in roughly five large city blocks. It is bounded on the west by Los Angeles Street, on the east by Alameda Street, on the south by3rd Street, and on the north by First Street, but also includes a substantial portion of the block north of First and west of Alameda, location of theJapanese American National Museum, theGo For Broke Monument, and a row of historic shops which lines the north side of First Street. A timeline has been set into the concrete in front of these shops, using bronze lettering, showing the history of each of the shops from the early 20th Century until the renovation of the district in the late 1980s. More broadly, Little Tokyo is bordered by theLos Angeles River to the east, downtown Los Angeles to the west,L.A. City Hall theParker Center to the north, andSkid Row to the south.
Museums include theJapanese American National Museum and an extension of theMuseum of Contemporary Art, formerly called the Temporary Contemporary and now known as theGeffen Contemporary (named afterDavid Geffen). Additionally, the visual arts are represented by the arts non-profit, LAArtcore which devotes itself to creating awareness of the visual arts through 24 exhibitions each year along with educational programming.[23] An art gallery called 123 Astronaut is housed within a kiosk on Astronaut Ellison Onizuka Street and contains a monument to AstronautEllison S. Onizuka, a Japanese American fromHawaiʻi who was a mission specialist on theSpace Shuttle Challenger when it disintegrated duringtakeoff in 1986.[24]
Little Tokyo has a variety of public art,[25][26] including a memorial statue ofChiune Sugihara, Japanese consul toLithuania beforeWorld War II andRighteous among the Nations.[27]
TheNisei Week festival is held every August, and includes a large parade, a pageant, athletic events, exhibits of Japanese art and culture, ataiko drum festival, the Japanese Festival Street Faire, a car show, and other events.[28]
There are also twoJapanese gardens in the area open to the public: the James Irvine garden in the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center[29] and a rooftop garden in theKyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens, formerly theNew Otani Hotel. TheGo for Broke Monument commemorates Japanese Americans who served in theUnited States Military duringWorld War II.
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With its proximity to Hollywood and its concentration as a focal point for the Pan Asian American community, Little Tokyo Los Angeles has long served as an incubator for Asian American and Pacific Islander artists and performers sporting a high concentration of legacy institutions.
East West Players, one of the nation's firstAsian American theater companies and the longest continuously running theatre of color in the nation, specializing in live theater written and performed by Asian American artists, is located in Little Tokyo, performing in theDavid Henry Hwang Theater, a 230-seat venue in the Union Center for the Performing Arts.[30]
TheJapanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC) runs the 800 seat Aratani Theater, which features theatre, dance, concerts as well as cultural performances and events.[31][32]
Visual Communications, anAsian Pacific American media arts organization that annually presentsVC FilmFest (Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival), in several venues around Little Tokyo.[33]
Tuesday Night Project is the longest running Asian American open Mic event in the nation running every 1st and 3rd Tuesday from April through October in the public courtyard of the Union Center for the Arts[34]
Cold Tofu Improv was founded in 1981 as the nation's first Asian American Improv & Comedy Group. Teaching classes in short form and long form improv.[35]
Kollaboration founded in 2000, is an organization focusing on advancing Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi Americans (APIDA) in the Music and entertainment industries. With affiliates in San Francisco, Atlanta, Hawaii, Houston, Boston and throughout the country, the organization hosts its annual national culmination "KOLLABORATION STAR" event at the Aratani Theatre, as well as their EMPOWER conference as incubator events for APIDA artists in the music industry.[36]
With the proximity of these organizations and Arts non-profit organizations, many notable actors, musicians and entertainers of AAPI descent have either begun their careers here, or continue to maintain a presence.East West Players saw the early careers of actors such asDaniel Dae Kim,John Cho,Reggie Lee,Amy Hill,Lucy Liu,Isa Briones, as well as playwrightsQui Nguyen.Lauren Yee, andDavid Henry Hwang. In 2018, actorGeorge Takei returned to Little Tokyo for the first Post Broadway staging of the musicalAllegiance by Jay Kuo & Lorenzo Thione co-produced byEast West Players and theJACCC at the Aratani Theatre.[37] The Aratani has also served as a home venue to the Grammy Nominated Jazz fusion groupHiroshima (band) founded by Dan Kuramoto & June Kuramoto.[38] ActressTamlyn Tomita began her career when she was crowned "Nisei Week Queen" in 1984 which led to her breakout casting inThe Karate Kid Part 2.[39] Filmmakers such asJustin Lin,Quentin Lee, andJustin Chon have premiered some of their early career making films at theLos Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.[40] ActorDante Basco has been a mainstay performing his poetry alongside many others at Tuesday Night Project.[41] Musicians such asAJ Rafael,Jane Lui,MC Jin and more have long relationships with Kollaboration since before the "youtube-boom" that saw many AAPI artists and musicians find an internet based audience.[36]
Little Tokyo continues to be a major convening point for AAPI artists in the entertainment industry, and a central incubator for the nation having twice before hosted the National Asian American Theatre Conference and Festival put on by the Consortium of Asian American Theatre Artists.[42] Little Tokyo has also seen the rise of many adjacent movements in the AAPI entertainment world such as Asian American theater companiesTeada,[43] Lodestone Theatre,[citation needed] Artists at Play,[44] Hereandnow Theatre,[45] Asian AF Comedy shows,[46] and the Comedy Comedy Festival.[47]
There are numerous Japanese restaurants, catering to both Japanese and non-Japanese clientele. Many of them specialize in one type ofJapanese cuisine, such asdonburi, Japanesenoodles (soba,ramen andudon),shabu-shabu (which translated from Japanese means 'swish-swish', referring to the motion of dipping meat and vegetables in a communal bowl of boiling water), Japanese curry, sushi, or yakitori. There are also a number ofyakiniku restaurants, where meat is often cooked on a small grill built into the center of the table. Little Tokyo is the birthplace of theCalifornia roll, invented by a chef named Ichiro Mashita at the Tokyo Kaikan sushi restaurant.
Twowagashi (Japanese sweets) shops located in Little Tokyo are among the oldest food establishments in Los Angeles. Fugetsu-do, founded in 1903,[48] appears to be the oldest still-operating food establishment in the city and the first one to celebrate a centennial; its best-known offerings includemochi andmanjū, and it claims to be an inventor of thefortune cookie.Mikawaya was founded in 1910, but is now well known as the company that introducedmochi ice cream to the United States in 1994.[49]
Little Tokyo has several shops that specialize in Japanese-languagevideos andDVDs, while other shops specialize in Japaneseelectronics andvideo games. These are a great way to find Japanese video games that were either never translated into English, or were never domestically released in North America. There are also several stores that sell manga and anime related products.
The Japanese Village Plaza is located roughly in the center of Little Tokyo on the east side ofSan Pedro Street. There are several restaurants in the plaza, plus a number of shops geared towards tourists. First Street and Second Street border Japanese Village Plaza and have a number of restaurants that are open later than those in the court.
The Weller Court shopping mall is located along Astronaut Ellison S Onizuka St., backing up to 2nd St. on the south and what was originally theNew Otani Hotel, now theDoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Los Angeles Downtown, along Los Angeles Street, to the north and west. It has several restaurants, karaoke clubs, and aBubble Tea cafe. For tourists visiting from Japan, there are a number of shops specializing in expensivename brand products such asCoach handbags. There is also a large bookstore,Kinokuniya, that is part of a well-known Japanese chain. They have a large selection of Japanese-language books, magazines, music CDs,manga, andanime, as well as a selection of English-language books on Japanese subjects and translated manga and anime.
Weller Court was the second major project of the East West Development Corporation in association with the Community Redevelopment Agency, after the $30 million New Otani. Groundbreaking was held in November 1978, to be completed in 1979 with 62,780 square feet (5,832 m2) of gross leasable area. The architect was Kajima Associates.[50]
In the 1920s, the southeast corner of First Street was the beginning of Little Tokyo. At this corner was theTomio Building, home to the Japanese-AmericanTomio Department Store, and two more Japanese-American department stores, the Asia Company and Hori Brothers.[51]
The area is served by theLos Angeles Unified School District.[52]
Los Angeles Public Library operates the Little Tokyo Branch.
The main office of theAsahi Gakuen, apart-time Japanese school, was formerly in room 308 on the third floor of the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC, 日米文化会館Nichibei Bunka Kaikan) building,[53] located in Little Tokyo.[54] Since then, it moved toHarbor Gateway, near Torrance.[55]
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There are severalBuddhist temples in or near Little Tokyo, representing many major schools of Japanese Buddhism:Jodo Shinshu,Jodo Shu,Shingon,Nichiren, andSoto Zen. They areZenshuji Soto Mission, Los Angeles Hompa Hongwanji (usually called Nishi Hongwanji), Higashi Honganji,[56]Koyasan Buddhist Temple, Nichiren Shu Beikoku Betsuin, and the Jodo Shu North America Buddhist Missions. Together they form the Los Angeles Buddhist Temple Federation (Jodo Shinshu temples in Long Beach and near USC are also members).
Little Tokyo is also home to Japanese AmericanChristian communities. Centenary United Methodist Church was founded in 1896 by first-generation Japanese American immigrants. Union Church of Los Angeles, founded in 1918, represents a long tradition of Japanese American Presbyterianism.
St. Francis Xavier Chapel and Japanese Catholic Center (also known as "Maryknoll") has been the base of the Japanese Catholic community in Los Angeles since 1912. Fr Albert Breton, a Japanese-speaking missionary of the Paris Foreign Mission Society, with the support of BishopThomas Conaty of theDiocese of Los Angeles, established the community on December 25, 1912. The first Japanese Mass was celebrated at the Bronson House on Jackson Street near the current Fukui Mortuary on Temple Street.[57] The center also formerly housed the Maryknoll School, administered by theMaryknoll Fathers from the early 1920s until the mid-1990s. Currently, Masses are offered in Japanese and English at St. Francis Xavier each Sunday.
One of the roots ofPentecostalism started in Little Tokyo. Where the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center Plaza is now located was once the home of the First Pentecostal Church, a multiracial congregation called the Azusa Street Mission. This is where theAzusa Street Revival started in 1906. Earlier, it was also the site of First African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The former CatholicCathedral of Saint Vibiana is just to the west of Little Tokyo. After being heavily damaged in the 1994Northridge earthquake, the archdiocese moved to a new site (now theCathedral of Our Lady of the Angels) and the old site was redeveloped. The former cathedral was converted into a performing arts space and non-historic buildings on the site demolished and replaced with a new Little Tokyo Branch of theLos Angeles Public Library.
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The community is served by theMetro A Line andMetro E Line atLittle Tokyo/Arts District station at the northeastern perimeter of Little Tokyo and is also walkable from theMetro B andD subway lines at eitherCivic Center/Grand Park station orUnion Station – with connections toAmtrak,Metrolink, and theMetro J Line BRT. When theA andE Lines connected to the formerL Line, via theRegional Connector, the original Little Tokyo/Arts District station was moved underground and across the street. This required demolition of two modest, one-story brick buildings. The two structures played an important role in the cultural life of the neighborhood for decades with one of the structures dating back at least to 1898.[17]
Metro Local lines 30 and 330 serve Little Tokyo. In March 2020, Metro selected a development firm responsible for constructing the new Regional Connector station. Community representatives from the Little Tokyo Business Association, theJapanese American National Museum, and former U.S. Transportation SecretaryNorman Mineta expressed their concerns about Metro's decision. Matters regarding the selection process, community needs, and design aesthetics delayed the project. The Little Tokyo/Arts District station was completed and reopened on June 16, 2023.[58][59]
The district appears in the filmsShowdown in Little Tokyo,Beverly Hills Ninja andThe Crimson Kimono.[60] When the Japaneseanime seriesKyatto Ninden Teyandee (キャッ党忍伝てやんでえ) was localized in English asSamurai Pizza Cats, the series' main setting "Edoropolis" was renamed Little Tokyo.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)But the Artistic Director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) in Little Tokyo isn't one to follow tradition.
学園事務局 19191 S. Vermont Ave., #660 Torrance, CA 90502- Compare the administrative office location tothe Map of Harbor Gateway from the City of Los Angeles. Despite the Torrance address, the administrative office is not inthe City of Torrance.
