Week 1: History and Character of San Jose’s Japantown

Tuesday, June 22^nd was our first official day of work here in San Jose Japantown. It started off with a short orientation at the Yu-Ai-Kai Senior Center where we met the NCI team of San Jose. It was the first time that Sami and I really got to see what the next eight weeks of our summer would entail. We learned that each week we were given a topic, which coincides with the people we would be meeting with, and the organizations we would be working with throughout each week. The topic for the first week was the History and Character of Japantown. We were given a wonderful and detailed walking tour by Leslie Masunaga who volunteers at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose giving tours on a regular basis. She gave us background to the different landmarks such as the Nikkei Lantern, the Issei Stone, and the several historic benches placed throughout the town. It was amazing to see how the landmarks and buildings each have a special story attached to them, giving San Jose Japantown its personality and historical significance.

We also had the chance to sit down and speak with Aggie Idemoto who volunteers at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) as well. Mrs. Idemoto spoke to us about the museum and how it was founded in 1987 in order to preserve and share some of the history, art and culture of Japanese-Americans. It focuses mainly on the agriculture and farmlands of the greater bay area, the World War II experiences, and the resettlement struggles after the war. Although the museum is currently under construction, she said that it should be completed and ready to open at the end of summer.

On Thursday we drove up to San Francisco to attend the roundtable discussion for the National Asian American Pacific Islanders Historic Preservation Forum, which was to take place on the weekend. Let by Alan Nishio and Jill Shiraki, we sat through presentations on various historical Japanese-American sites throughout California, such as the Gilroy Hot Springs and the Castroville Schoolhouse of Monterey Bay. Along with the other interns from San Francisco, we listened to what the leaders of the different organizations had to say about preserving certain sites and also participated in the discussion to show a young adult perspective.

Throughout the week we spent a good amount of time working with Leon Kimura, president of the San Jose chapter of the JACL. With headquarters in the Issei Memorial Building, Leon has been working on the big centennial celebration marking the 100^th anniversary of the Issei Memorial Building that is to take place in October. To prepare for this, we helped him with the research of the building’s history and went through pictures to make a slideshow portraying important events happening with the building over the past century. It was interesting to learn how the building, which was once a hospital, is now home to organizations such as JACL, San Jose Taiko, and CATs. We also helped out with the Children’s Day festivities, which took place at the Issei Memorial Building on Friday. Children from Lotus Preschool and Suzume no Gakko came to enjoy the arts and crafts, games, and delicious food. There were also special appearances by Shorty Fatz custom bikes who offered coloring pages for the kids and State of Grace Tattoo who provided face paint tattoos that were extremely popular with the kids. This past week I learned the saying “kodomo no tameni,” meaning “for the children’s sake.” It is because of events like these that bring the San Jose Japantown community and keep it strong for the future.