TIES THAT BIND TO FEATURE A VARIETY OF PERFORMANCES AND ACTIVITIES OF COMMUNITY GROUPS AT NIKKEI COMMUNITY DAY

Ties That Bind will sponsor a celebration of Japanese and Japanese American heritage, culture, and community to bring together for one day the diverse segments of the Japanese and Japanese American community scattered throughout the L.A. area at the First Annual Nikkei Community Day, on Saturday, May 12, in Little Tokyo. The Day will put a spotlight on important issues the community faces through a symposium on “The State and Future of the Nikkei Community” from 9:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., and a health forum sponsored by JACL from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., both in JACCC Garden Room A. It will also highlight the unique talent and vibrant activity of the community through performances on two stages, and the sharing of “who we are and what we do” by community centers and organizations with booths on two plazas.

On the stage at Japanese Village Plaza, at 11 a.m., the Gardena Japanese Cultural Institute’s Senior Ukelele and Hula Group will be performing. At 12:30 p.m., the Tokushima Kenjinkai will dance Awa Odori, a 400 year-old tradition from Tokushima-ken in Shikoku. At 1:30 p.m., Nippon Minyo Kenkyukai Hoshun Kai Odori, a Japanese folk dance class from the Japanese Community Pioneer Center in Los Angeles, will perform “kaiyominyo” or modern folk song and dance pieces. At 2:30 p.m., the Holiness Youth Choir, a combined choir of young people from L.A. and West L.A. Holiness Churches, will sing. On the stage at JACCC Plaza, at 1 p.m., Naginata Dojo of the Pasadena Japanese Cultural Institute will give a martial arts demonstration of naginata, a pole with a single curved blade at one end.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at booths on JACCC Plaza will be community centers such as East San Gabriel Valley Japanese Community Center, Long Beach Japanese Community Center, Pasadena Japanese Cultural Institute, and Valley Japanese Community Center, Sun Valley; community organizations such as the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) Pacific Southwest District, Japanese American Historical Society of Southern California, Little Tokyo Historical Society, National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse (NAPAFASA), and Nikkei Games; and agencies connected with the Health Forum such as the JACL Health Benefits Trust, L.A. Dietetic Association, Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company, the Social Security Administration, and the Center for Medicare Medicaid Services which will answer questions about Medicare prescription plan coverage. In JACCC Garden Room B, NAPAFASA and Pacific Asian Language Services (PALS) will provide information about their programs and services.

At booths on the Japanese Village Plaza, Gardena Valley Baptist Church will make and give away free balloon animals; Go For Broke National Educational Center will share information about its programs to raise the public's awareness of World War II Japanese American veteran history; Japanese American Living Legacy will showcase its products and provide information about how it serves the Japanese American community through the oral histories it collects; and Pan Pacific Service will hand out free product samples and publicize its new retail store, Sugoi Life, which will introduce the new Japan to the U.S. with unique items never seen before in the U.S, toys, animation, stationery, houseware, and lifestyle goods.

Nikkei Community Day is sponsored by Ties That Bind in collaboration with the Nikkei Federation, Little Tokyo Service Center, Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, Japanese American Citizens League, and Little Tokyo Recreation Center, and in conjunction with JACCC’s Family FunFest Children’s Day Celebration, and the Recreation Center’s San Tai San Basketball Tournament. It has received major funding support from the JACL Trust Fund and Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council.

Ties That Bind is a group of community leaders which was organized in 2002 to implement recommendations which came out of several national and local conferences concerned with the preservation and prosperity in the future of the Japanese American community. It successfully created in 2003 the annual one-week Japanese American heritage summer day camp for middle school children called Camp Musubi. In September 2005, it organized Ties That Bind 3, a conference on the preservation of Little Tokyo as a historic heritage community. In July 2006, it launched the Little Tokyo Historical Society to collect, preserve, and disseminate the rich history of Little Tokyo. And on May 12, 2007, it will sponsor the First Annual Nikkei Community Day.

For more information about the Day’s activities, contact Kio Tong-Ishikawa at kishikawa@ltsc.org, or (213) 473-3032.