The Rise and Fall of Japantown (Final)

Japan Center’s hottest topic of the month was the construction of a new little square looking thing in front of Café Hana. Many people stopped when they saw it and argued about what that thing was. The square thing was built in replace of the small waterless fountain but other than that, there was no other clear explanation known to people in general.

Seiko Fujimoto, a Japan Center’s merchant, half-jokingly said it was an Olympic swimming pool. A visitor of the Japan Center said it looked like a shiatsu bath. No one was able to figure out what that thing was exactly. It remained a mystery for everyone for sometime until the construction workers started to put colorful tiles on it.

“It’s a pond,” another visitor said.

The pond is like a premonition of Japantown’s future that is still unknown and in questioned.

San Francisco’s Japantown, one of the three remaining Japantowns in California, struggled to stay afloat. A merchant said in the Japantown Merchants Association’s meeting if sales went down constantly since September.

Steve Nakajo, the co-founder of Kimochi, a non-profit organization that assists senior citizen, said, “Do you see how many people in the Japan Center? It’s dead, man. There are probably two to three people.”

“Do you want a business here?” he asked.

Most community members and activists agree if an immediate action needs to be taken immediately before all of the merchants go out of business.

However, generational and cultural gaps got in the way. Everyone had a different point of view about what was best for Japantown. Each felt strongly about his or her stance and did not seem to willing to let it go.

Some people wanted Japantown to stay the way it was with little changes or minor renovations to bring old customers back. Others wanted to turn around Japantown’s image of being a quiet neighborhood to a hip and cool neighborhood for youngsters and this will be done by bringing trendy places to hang out at Japantown.

E.J. Varela, the food and beverages director of Hotel kabuki, said, “They do not want any society trends.”

Varela directed the statement to people who do not share her point of view and those who preferred to preserve Japantown like it was “a museum.” She mentioned Starbucks, Subway and several big names in the list of “trendy” brands that will bring more people to Japantown.

Under the city’s zoning code, Japantown has a rule that every business in the area has to be culturally relevant. This rule and regulation automatically bans chain restaurants like McDonald’s and retails like Macy’s and Bloomingdale's. The idea is to protect the small businesses in the area but will it help? Do people and businesses think they need to have a McDonald’s in the neighborhood?

Reaching a consensus is definitely a painful thing because there is hardly a middle ground in the process.

Aya Ino, a member of Nihonmachi Roots, a new youth group that taken an interest of Japantown issues related, pointed out the importance of having a dialogue to bridge the wide gap between those who want to preserve and those who want to change.

In the mean time, Japantown continued to show signs of dying and many people became frustrated, racing with the time to save their neighborhood.

These people had every reason to be frustrated: the two community’s newspapers, Nichi Bei Times (founded in 1899) and Hokubei Mainichi (founded in 1948), which had been circulating around Japantown for generations, suddenly disappeared. The two newspapers closed down with just two months in between.

Karen Kai, a community activist, talked about the community’s reaction of the closing of the two newspapers, “Everybody knew about the closing of Nichi Bei but when Hokubei’s closing down, they said, ‘Hokubei?!’”

When Nichi Bei Times announced it would publish its last issue on Sept. 10, Robert Okamura, the owner of a family-owned mochi store, Benkyodo, said even if Nichi Bei Times shut down, they still have the Hokubei Mainichi.

But now, with both newspapers folded up, Japantown’s community had no one to tell the story of the mom and pop store that went out of business and the life journey of a community’s elder who passed away. There will be no more tales about the neighborhood that survived two redevelopments in the past.

Basil Lee, a volunteer in Kimochi, said, “The younger generation, who born here, they adapted to American life. Maybe they don’t like sushi as much. Or rice. They eat hamburger.”

Japanese-American has a very unique identity. They have Japanese roots and history but many assimilate to the American culture. Today, many Japanese-Americans have only a trace of Japanese culture in them.

Fujimoto, who worked and raised her children in the United States, said that her son tried hard to be an American when he grew up and in the process, Fujimoto said she believed her son had became more of an American than a Japanese.

Another problem is language. Language is culture. However, many Japanese-Americans who grew up in the United States have little or no knowledge about Japanese language.

Kai, who served in the advisory board of Japantown Better Neighborhood Plan, said, “During the internment camp, many Japanese, me included, were raised under the belief if the assimilation was the key goal. And piece of that assimilation was to speak flawless English so my parents never sent me to Japanese school.”

Many parts of the culture are lost in translation. Thus, the generations of Japanese who do not speak the language will probably feel weaker connections with their roots and less eagerness to learn and pass on their culture to the next generation. When the language died, the culture died too.

Peter Yamamoto of the National Japanese American Historical Society said Japantown has a slow replenishing rate from immigration to keep it alive.

If what Yamamoto said was true, who will keep Japantown alive? Will it even needed to have a Japantown when the younger generations feel less attachment with the Japanese culture?

Benh Nakajo, a community activist who worked at Benkyodo, said, “[Our] goal is to leave something for the future generation. At least, physically.”

From there, the fight continued.

While some stores closed, others open. NEW PEOPLE, a new store in Japantown that markets itself on the image of Japanese pop-culture, was hoped to bring more people, especially youths, to the neighborhood. On a community forum on the Japanese-American Press, there was also a possibility to turn both of the community’s newspapers into non-profit organizations just to keep them going. While some people moved out of Japantown, grassroots organizations like Nihonmachi Roots appeared and organized to promote Japantown. When one thing falls, another rises.