Nathan Masters: Wow, so this has been here since 1903?

Woman: That's correct.

Masters: That's amazing.

Woman: So a lot of these are called--they're mochi, and so it's pounded sweet rice, and then there's a filling, and then Fugetsu-Do also has some of their more modern creations, too, like the strawberry one, and they also have a peanut butter one.

Masters: Ooh, I love peanut butter.

Ha ha!

Should I get that?

I mean, this business has been here for almost 120 years.

That's... Woman: That's right.

Masters: astounding for, like, really, any business in Los Angeles, but this business survived the incarcerations.

Woman: That's right, yeah, and we also heard that the family was making these treats inside of Heart Mountain, Wyoming, so one of America's concentration camps.

Masters: Inside one of the camps.

Woman: That's right.

Masters: Wow.

Woman: They were taking sugar rations from other people and making this in camp, so it's-- Masters: So this is a resilient business, then.

Woman: Absolutely.

Masters: This episode of "Lost L.A." was made possible in part by the California State Library and the Frieda Berlinski Foundation.

Should we try these?

Woman: Yes, please.

Yeah.

Masters: Mm.

Mm.

That's really good, so this family has been operating this business since 1903.

Do you know, you know, where did they land after the war?

Woman: So in talking with Brian Kito--who's, I think, the third-generation manju and mochi maker--he was saying that when his family returned to Los Angeles from Heart Mountain, Wyoming, he said his family didn't have a lot of money, and so they stayed at a hostel which was operated out of Koyasan Buddhist Temple, which is right across the street.

Masters: A hostel.

OK. Woman: That's right.

Several of the religious organizations operated hostels and allowed people to stay there until they could sort of get back onto their feet, so Koyasan was one location, and then, we'll point out, Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple also operated a hostel.

I should point out, across the street is Bunkado.

It's a gift shop, and that opened soon after the war and has been in operation ever since, so there are quite a few businesses here that opened, you know, right after.

Masters: After the war.

I mean, it's astounding, really, like, despite all of the challenges, that Little Tokyo was able to bounce back, and it's still, I mean, a vibrant place today.

Woman: Exactly, yeah, so it was really the community sort of banding together to help people restart their lives, but there are a few individuals that I think stuck their necks out, really, and advocated for Japanese Americans, and one person in particular that I'm thinking about is Hugh Macbeth, who was a Black civil rights attorney, very prominent, who lived in the Crenshaw area-- which was, you know, historically, there was a Japanese American population there--and as soon as Pearl Harbor was attacked and Japanese immigrants were picked up, Hugh Macbeth was out there writing letters of support to try to get a lot of Japanese issei men out of prison.

He was trying to prevent the forced removal from happening and then continued his work after the war, including hiring a young attorney named Chiyoko Sakamoto.

Masters: A Japanese American attorney.

Woman: That's correct.

She was the first Japanese American-- I think Asian American woman to be accepted to the California State Bar, and before the war, her office was actually right in this building, which is now part of the Japanese American National Museum.

Masters: What happened to Little Tokyo while its Japanese American residents were incarcerated, the vacant homes and shops were soon filled by Black families migrating from the South attracted by defense industry jobs.

It gave the neighborhood a different vibe and a different name-- Bronzeville, but that lasted just a few years.

After the war Japanese families returned, and Bronzeville faded away.

Woman: Well, welcome to JANM's collection.

I will say that we don't have a lot related to the early postwar period... Masters: Oh, interesting.

Woman: and I don't think we talk enough about the early postwar period and just how difficult it was for people to restart their lives.

You know, we started talking about Chiyoko Sakamoto.

Masters: Right.

Woman: Chiyoko's parents and her older sister emigrated from Japan in the early 20th century, and Chiyoko was born here along with two other brothers.

This is a pendant, I guess, from a honor society.

Master: The scales of Justice.

Woman: We also have her law school class ring.

masters: I mean, a collection like this makes this story that you tell about somebody just so much more personal, too.

Woman: Exactly, yeah, so Chiyoko lived with her brother in the Seinan neighborhood near Crenshaw, which translates to Southwest Los Angeles.

She lived within a few miles of Hugh Macbeth.

Chiyoko and her family were forcibly removed from Los Angeles, ultimately to Amache, which was one of the concentration camps in Colorado, and they eventually came back to Los Angeles, and Chiyoko did not think she would restart her law career, but Hugh Macbeth, who had been championing for Japanese Americans throughout the war, hired her to work in his law firm, so they had an office in the Crenshaw area, and they also had an office in Downtown Los Angeles.

Masters: Oh, these are her business cards.

Woman: That's right.

Yeah.

Masters: Oh.

"Chiyoko Sakamoto, Attorney At Law, 3324 West Jefferson Boulevard."

What's interesting is that it seems like the story of Japanese Americans returning from the incarceration, there seemed to be a lot of intersections with the Black community here in Los Angeles, and you said that, presumably, this-- What was the name of this neighborhood, the Crenshaw area, in Japanese?

Woman: Seinan.

Masters: Seinan.

OK, so this is where a lot of those intersections happened?

Woman: That's correct.

Yeah.

Masters: I see, so today we think of Crenshaw as a, you know, historically African American neighborhood within Los Angeles, but there was a big Japanese American component there.

Woman: That's correct.

Masters: Black and Japanese Americans coexisted in Crenshaw, and they helped each other, joining forces to challenge racial covenants designed to keep non-whites out of many neighborhoods, and they succeeded.

In May of 1948, the Supreme Court outlawed racial covenants everywhere.

The neighborhood hotspot in Crenshaw was the Holiday Bowl.

Even if you didn't bowl, everyone gathered there for coffee, birthday parties, or just to be with friends.

The Bowl closed in 2000, but a waitress who worked there opened up a coffee shop a few blocks away.

Tak's Coffee Shop is still in business.

It was the perfect place to sit down with Nobuko Miyamoto.

She grew up in Crenshaw and continues to be a part of the community.

Miyamoto: Hello.

How are you?

Masters: Hi there.

Woman: Thank you.

Ready to order?

Miyamoto: I would like saimin.

Woman: Saimin.

Masters: Yeah.

I'll have the chili, please.

Miyamoto: Without rice?

Masters: Yeah.

Sorry.

No rice, please.

Ha ha ha!

Woman: OK.

Thank you.

Masters: Thanks.

Miyamoto: Ha ha ha!

Masters: Let's start with the war, World War II.

What was your family situation during the war?

Miyamoto: So I was a baby, and we were uprooted and sent to Santa Anita Racetrack, where there were more than 10,000 people, I think, at the height with, you know, sleeping on the floor with straw mattresses, and-- Masters: And then what happened next?

Miyamoto: It was careful transition coming back.

A lot of people lived in the temples, like the Buddhist temples, or shelters... Masters: Yeah.

Miyamoto: while people found places to live, tried to find a job, et cetera, and we were reviled.

You know, Japanese people were afraid to leave the--you know, to go shopping by themselves.

It was not a comforting place to be after the war to be out.

I mean, it wasn't war to be out.

I mean, it wasn't comforting to be locked up, but it wasn't easy coming out.

It was just as hard.

Masters: We're talking about late 1940s.

Miyamoto: Yes.

When we came back, we lived with friends and family until we finally could get an apartment.

Masters: Oh.

Miyamoto: Oh.

Masters: I mean, I can only imagine what this must have felt like, having suffered this, you know, indignity or civil injustice and then to come back and now you're living, what, in fear of attacks, violence potentially?

Miyamoto: I think some people did have physical fear... Masters: Yeah.

Miyamoto: but the discrimination, job discrimination, I think it was very hard for Japanese men, especially, to get jobs.

Masters: Yeah.

Miyamoto: It might have been a little bit easier for the women--they weren't as threatening--but every Japanese man I ever met in those days, they were gardeners.

Masters: So where did your family end up moving to?

You said you moved in very close to here.

Miyamoto: Yes, Second Avenue and Jefferson.

Masters: Yeah.

Miyamoto: We had a friend, a family friend, who offered a room in their house... Masters: Yeah.

Miyamoto: and it was just me and my mother and father at that time.

My mother was really smart, and she tried to get me into good schools, and so eventually, I got a scholarship at American School of Dance in Hollywood, so that gave me the ability at a very young age to start working--I think I was 15--in a movie called "The King and I."

Masters: Oh, oh, just a little movie called "The King and I."

Miyamoto: Yeah, just a little movie, yeah, with Yul Brynner.

Masters: Wow.

Miyamoto: Yeah.

Yeah.

Girl: We escaped.

Chorus: [Indistinct] Miyamoto: It was sort of magical, you know, for a young person.

We knew we were people of color, you know?

We had to be better than other people to get a job.

In fact, when I got a scholarship, I was told, "In order for you to make a living as a dancer, you have to be twice as good as everybody else."

If you're Japanese--and my name at that time was not Nobuko; they called me Joanne-- we wanted to be Western.

We wanted to be accepted as "Americans," so the idea of getting out of the neighborhood, you know, and being able to be in this bigger world of the movies or bigger world of, you know, theater or whatever, it was a push to get out of the community, to go beyond the community, not to be stuck here because we had to be here.

Masters: So you'd been displaced, and you sort of found a home, made a home here in the Crenshaw area, but it was a home that you wanted to move forward from.

Miyamoto: And nobody wants to feel that they have to live somewhere just because there are, you know, discrimination and you can't live somewhere else... Masters: Yeah.

Miyamoto: so you want to raise up.

You want to raise yourself up.

You want to be the exception to the rule, but eventually, people started leaving this area, even though there are certain markers here that we hoped would never disappear, like a Holiday Bowl.

That place, I spoke to one of the owners many years after he had-- He was very old, and I said, "Why did you-- You know, what's gonna happen to Holiday Bowl when you, you know, pass?"

and he said, "I want my kids to take it on, but they don't want to do it," because the reason why he did it, he said, "I wanted a place where people of all colors and all kinds could come together and have a good time."

Masters: That's what Holiday Bowl was, right?

Miyamoto: Yes.

Well, first of all, in the Sixties, late Sixties, and the Seventies--on the back wall was a brick wall, and on it was written huge, "Revolution"... Masters: Wow.

Miyamoto: and then you walk in, and there would be a Black league bowling, you know, and you go in the coffee shop, which was like this, and you would eat your noodles like this, and you go out, and there would be a Japanese bowling league, so it would be like this revolving door of Black and Japanese people having fun in their leagues, you know.

It was really a gathering place where it didn't have borders the way we do it in the bigger world.

Masters: Mm-hmm.

Miyamoto: That's what was so beautiful about it, and that's what made us very sad when it went down.

That was something we never thought would disappear because we grew up together.

We grew up going to school, high school, and then when Asian Americans, when Black people started rising up--Black Power, you know, civil rights, Black Power, et cetera--we all looked at that and said, "Well, where are we in this picture?"

Masters: What's your sense of how the Black community sort of looked at the experience of Japanese Americans?

Miyamoto: I helped to make a film, a documentary drama about the Black Panthers in 1968.

They recognized that what happened to Japanese Americans could happen to them, too, that we were put in camp.

That could happen to African Americans, especially political people, as well.

To see that Black people sort of accepted me as a sister, too, that they understood that we had oppression as well as they have... Masters: Mm-hmm.

Miyamoto: it was different than just being in the community the way we were growing up.

Now there was political consciousness.

Masters: Right.

Miyamoto: Now there was a move to say, "We can change this.

We need to change our situation."

It was a revelation, really.

They were doing not only political demonstrations, but serving people, creating programs for elders, for youth who were hooked on drugs.

Even down the street here at Crenshaw, there was an organization called the Yellow Brotherhood, and by that time, I had a son who was African American, or half and half.

I lived, actually, on Arlington and Vernon and became part of Leimert Park and Brockman Gallery and the art scene that was going on there, so my son could go there and see images of Black people to make him know that it's normal and wonderful to be Black... Masters: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Miyamoto: and so I have sort of straddled those two worlds of the Japanese community and the Black community in order to be a good mother... or try.

Ha ha ha!

Masters: Nick Nagatani played a big role in the Yellow Brotherhood that Nobuko mentioned.

It was one of many organizations demanding change at a time when many young people were rising up to celebrate Black, Chicano, Native American, and Asian American pride.

Now, you went to school here, didn't you?

Nagatani: Yeah.

I'm a Dorsey High alumni.

Masters: So when did your family move to Crenshaw?

Nagatani: It was actually in the Fifties that my mother and father, who after they were released from camp, that ultimately, they came back to Crenshaw.

This Crenshaw was, like, the hub of the postwar Japanese American community.

Masters: So the late 1960s, there was a lot of change sort of rising up organically from within the community--Yellow Brotherhood was founded--but you weren't here to see a lot of that.

Nagatani: I was in Vietnam at the time.

I was in the Marine Corps.

Masters: Marine Corps, yeah, and what was that like in Vietnam?

Nagatani: You know, I felt we had no business being there.

Masters: Yeah.

Nagatani: Our primary interest was just coming back home in one piece.

Masters: What was it like to land back in Crenshaw?

Nagatani: We were defining ourselves, and we're defining ourselves as Asian, and, you know, there was a Black liberation movement.

People were rising, and that's what I came back to, and that's what I felt, and, you know, that was inspiring.

Masters: So the early 1970s, there was still a substantial Japanese American population coming to this school, attending this school, but that started to change?

Nagatani: Yes, and the reason why it started to change was when the instituted the busing program and it gave families an opportunity to leave Dorsey High School or the local schools and send their kids to other schools in, like, more suburban or white areas like Westchester or Palisades.

Most of the families, the Japanese American families, unfortunately, you know, had sent their kids on that yellow bus out of the community.

Masters: So the ties keeping everybody together or tied down to Crenshaw, they started to loosen.

Nagatani: Yeah.

I think it sent out a large message like, "You know what?

This neighborhood is, like, on its way down," which I didn't feel.

We were judges, attorneys, tradespeople.

There was actors.

They were athletes, like, you name it.

Masters: Basketball was a big part of Nick's life.

He played on the Dorsey High basketball team, and later, when he got back from Vietnam, Nick used his basketball chops to bring young people together to revitalize the Yellow Brotherhood and give Crenshaw kids a sense of culture and history.

Wow.

It's beautiful.

Nagatani: Well, they really kept this place up.

Masters: Clearly.

Yeah.

It's been a while since you've been here?

Nagatani: Yeah, yeah.

Masters: Yeah.

Nagatani: Look at all the championships.

Masters: Yeah.

Nagatani: Whew.

Masters: Easy layup.

Nagatani: Yeah.

Ha ha!

Masters: Wow!

Here we go.

Oh, yeah.

Nagatani: Ooh.

Money.

Masters: Ooh, Yeah.

Ha ha ha!

Nagatani: Money.

Money.

Masters: I can't believe I did that.

Ha ha ha!

So you were getting very political at the time.

Did you look back and reflect on the lessons of the incarceration?

Nagatani: Yes, yes, and how it impacted, you know, our community, myself, my family, my neighbors, my friends.

The second generation, what they wanted to do was, like, to provide for us to make sure that we never experienced anything like that... Masters: Right.

Nagatani: but in doing so, that they really instilled in us that we actually had to be, like, more white.

Masters: Then when you came back from Vietnam, you were sort of pushing back against that a little bit.

Nagatani: Well, I think I pushed back against that my whole life.

Masters: Ha ha ha!

Right.

Nagatani: Yeah.

When I was discharged from the service, my history of being involved in the Yellow Brotherhood started off at a place called the Japanese American Community Service, called the JACS Office, in Little Tokyo.

It wasn't about do-gooders, but it was about doing good and trying to make a change in our community, the attitudes, working for a more of a just society, you know, human worth over monetary gain, just saying that, you know, "Hey, we're part of this community, too," that, you know, "very much part of the community.

Don't count us out because, you know, we have also something to contribute."

We received a phone call from some of the kids saying that there's gonna be a fight after school between, like, the Asians and the Blacks, so, you know, jumped in my car, went out there, you know, and I just saw a group of, like--a large congregation of, like, Japanese American youth.

I recognized one of the kids that was, you know, part of that congregation, and then we started saying, "Hey, why don't we all just go down to the YB house, you know, so why don't you be there tomorrow?"

so the next day, I mean, they came en masse, and, you know, we started to, like--you know, broke up into groups and started talking about, like, racism, things going on in the community, that there was really not a thriving geographic Japanese American community, that there wasn't a lot of, like, involvement or activities for youth, so they readily, like, wanted to be part of something, a organization, yeah, so we had, you know-- All together, like, you know, we were like a fist.

We had a lot.

Yeah.

We were powerful.

Masters: Leaders like Nick Nagatani work hard to keep their communities together, but nothing lasts forever.

Neighborhoods change, and Crenshaw was no exception.

Like others before and after, the Japanese American community grew, prospered, and looked for places to expand.

Families wanted less crowding and a sense of security.

By the late Sixties, nearly all had moved to the suburbs, but some here still remember their Japanese American neighbors, like Joy Simmons, a longtime Crenshaw resident.

So you went to a Japanese American school in this neighborhood?

Simmons: Yes.

I did-- Daichi Gakuen.

It was on 12th Avenue and Jefferson in what we call now Jefferson Park.

I went to Sixth Avenue Elementary School, which is down the street, and there was a big mix of Black kids and Japanese kids.

My church, Westside Church of Christ across the street from that, was also Black and Japanese.

Masters: So you learned Japanese, then.

Simmons: Yes.

I did.

Masters: Wow.

OK, so you went in there, though, not knowing... Simmons: No.

Masters: any Japanese.

Simmons: I was a regular, 9-year-old, Black girl and whose friends, the girls, were Japanese, and I said, "Well, you know, I want to do that, too, after school," and it was, like, an after-school program, and we ran down the street at 3:00 to get to the school by 3:15, and you went to school from 3:15 to 4:30 and every day, Monday through Friday, and then once I moved from the neighborhood into View Park, then I went to Saturday school instead.

Masters: So what made you decide to go to the school?

Simmons: Because all the other girls in the neighborhood were doing it, and I said, "Well, why not?"

I haven't spoken it, probably, in 45 years.

Masters: But if we were to drop you in the middle of Tokyo, you could probably get around.

Simmons: Oh, yeah.

Masters: Yeah.

Simmons: Yeah.

I could still get around.

Masters: I imagine, you know, living so close together, going to the same schools, there must have been a lot of cultural exchange between the Black and Japanese communities.

Simmons: Especially-- Yes.

That is correct and especially at Crenshaw Square, so they always had Nisei Week, so you had a big festival.

I learned Japanese dance.

You know, the restaurants are always here.

You knew that's where the culture kind of exchange was and the little businesses that were along Jefferson in particular.

Masters: How about the other way?

Like, how did Black culture, you know, seeped into the Japanese community?

Simmons: Because we had the music, we did this stuff.

We have the parties.

It was a whole thing, so it did.

Masters: What was the sort of musical landscape here?

Simmons: Oh, this is, like, still the Motown, that whole thing, before you got to the Jimi Hendrix stuff, which is a little later but, you know, in addition to the Beatles and the Monkees and the da da da, all of that was happening at that time in junior high school and high.

Yeah.

Masters: And the Japanese community took part in that, too.

Simmons: Oh, for sure.

They were at the parties, could've had a Japanese boyfriend, OK?

It was a lot of back and forth at the time, actually.

Masters: You know, today, Leimert Park, Crenshaw, sort of known as the heart of Black Los Angeles, right?

Simmons: Yes.

Masters: I mean, it's, like, this vibrant cultural center.

Simmons: Making a place, staking a claim for Black L.A. is something that's really important, and to see Leimert Park particularly with all the young entrepreneurs putting businesses here and having these weekends where everybody comes out, it's important... Masters: It's wonderful.

Simmons: and it's exciting.

Masters: So the community, including yourself through Destination Crenshaw, in some ways, you're trying to preserve a little bit of what was in the past.

Simmons: Yes.

Masters: How does the Japanese American history fit into that?

Simmons: I think the architecture and keeping Crenshaw Square looking the way that it is but making it vibrant again.

They are still some small, Japanese businesses that are still.

Tak's is still there.

Masters: Of course.

Simmons: I wish someone would go in and take Grace's Bakery, which is also on Jefferson near Crenshaw.

That used to be a thing.

I mean, if you got a cake from Grace's Pastry Bakery, it was a thing.

Masters: So we're missing out right now.

Simmons: Yeah--what can I say?-- but really to have that whole corridor kind of come back alive, I think, is what's gonna really hold that place for Black L.A. Masters: How is the history of Japanese Americans here important to, you know, Black L.A.?

Simmons: It was a very special time and place, and I think for those of us who grew up here at that time, we remember that really fondly, and I would like to think that there's some way for us to do that, to be able to talk about and get people to jog their memories that this did exist.

Masters: The people move on.

The stores close, or they change hands, but here and there, you see a sign, a plaque, a garden, little reminders of a Crenshaw that gave Japanese Americans a haven, a place to rebuild their lives after the trauma of World War II.

It was a special time preserved in the archives and in the hearts and minds of those who lived here and still remember.

This episode of "Lost L.A." was made possible in part by the California State Library and the Frieda Berlinski Foundation.