Perfis da comunidade de Little Tokyo
O Discover Nikkei fez parceria com o professor Morgan Pitelka do Occidental College e seus alunos no seminário da primavera de 2009 “Japanofilia: Orientalismo, Nacionalismo, Transnacionalismo” em um significativo projeto de documentação baseado na comunidade. Os estudantes entrevistaram proprietários de cinco empresas antigas de Little Tokyo para criar coleções e artigos do Álbum Nikkei.
Stories from this series
The Aoi Restaurant: A Little Tokyo Treasure
28 de Abril de 2009 • Robert Bonaparte
Mrs. Hiroko Yamagata and the Aoi Restaurant have a remarkable story. The Aoi Restaurant is located on historic First Street in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. Founded in 1976 by Mrs. Hiroko Yamagata, Aoi Restaurant has braved the highs and lows and remained in the same location for 33 years. Now a Little Tokyo mainstay, the restaurant has always offered delicious home-style cooking and a comforting atmosphere. As a Japanese immigrant in the 1960s, Mrs. Yamagata showed incredible perseverance and bravery …
Community Connections: Aihara Insurance’s 61-Year Commitment to Little Tokyo
21 de Abril de 2009 • Brittany-Marie Swanson
Upon his return to Little Tokyo after World War II, veteran Luis K. Aihara found the community much changed. Though his own family had been uprooted and incarcerated in internment camps, they, and many other families of Japanese descent, flocked back to Little Tokyo where the majority of Buddhist temples and Japanese markets were located. Even after the chaos and displacement of war, Little Tokyo’s sense of community reemerged, and it was here in 1948 that Aihara founded his company, …
The Aihara Family
16 de Abril de 2009 • Deborah Southern
Doug Aihara, a third generation Japanese American, considers his family to be a “J-town family.” When he lived in Boyle Heights as a child, he and his family went into Little Tokyo at least once a week to buy their groceries and enjoy the community’s company and festivities. “You couldn’t even get rice outside of Little Tokyo, except for Uncle Ben’s… but that just doesn’t hold well for sushi” says Doug. Little Tokyo was the center of Japanese culture in …
The Little Tokyo Café: A Family Business
14 de Abril de 2009 • Jamal Fahim
Mitsuko Minohara is the owner of the cozy Little Tokyo Café located at 116 N. San Pedro Street in Los Angeles. Mitsuko is a second-generation Japanese American and was born in Manzanar, California, in 1943. Manzanar served as one of the ten concentration camps that contained roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. Mitsuko and her family came to Los Angeles in 1946, a year after the WRA (War Relocation Authority) closed Manzanar. Mitsuko has four children: an older …
The Little Tokyo Cafe: More Than Just Traditional Japanese
10 de Abril de 2009 • Matthew Tsujimura
The Little Tokyo Café, originally created in the late 1920’s to early 1930’s, and its current owner Mitsuko Minohara, have been familiar to many who lived in downtown Los Angeles. Initially located at the corner of 2nd and San Pedro, the Little Tokyo Café has moved various times, but still manages to hold a special place in the hearts of the locals. Known for its combination plate, which is a mixture of two Chinese dishes, Char Siu and Shumai, this …
