By Kiyomi Casey

Old Town Pasadena was once a Japantown

Pasadena is a cultural center for the San Gabriel Valley in LA County. The city reports over 3.5 million visitors a year. Museums, live theater, The Rose Bowl, and the 21 blocks of shops and restaurants that make up Old Town Pasadena draw in both tourists and locals.

In the early 1900’s Pasadena was also home to one of 40 California Japantowns. The map of Japanese American Businesses in 1940 created by Ben Pease in 2007 for Japantown Atlas, and used in the project Preserving California Japantowns shows where each Japanese owned business was located. The modern photos accompanying the map show what each location in Old Town Pasadena looks like today.

Union Presbyterian Church

Two locations within Old Town are not pictured, Tanzawa Co, and Union Presbyterian Church. The church was forced to relocate due to the construction of the 210 highway. However, they  were able to relocate to Altadena, and now operate under the name First Presbyterian Church Altadena. 

In 2005, the church created an Oral Histories Project to interview members that lived through WWII, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans. 23 people’s stories were recorded through the Oral Histories Project; all people who participated in the project have since passed.

One participant, Miki Kumamoto, was in Japan when World War II started, and was told to go home by the American Consulate. She recalled being in the Union Church when Pearl Harbor was bombed. She attended Japanese American Citizens League meetings at the church to talk about the American Government’s reaction, and the upcoming incarceration of Japanese Americans. Kumamoto said that her mother burned their textbooks from Japan, but luckily she  “had a second grade teacher in another church who said she was willing to hide any of our Japanese things that we wanted to keep.”. 

Kumamoto’s family was determined to keep their belongings throughout the war. Her father was particularly determined to keep their house and their car. He took apart the car and packed it up so no one could tell there was a car in their garage, “He was not going to give up his house, he was not going to give up his car, he was not going to be sent back to Japan. He was not going back, that was not a life for him. We are going to stay no matter what” Kumamoto recalls. 

Ted Tajima, another participant in the oral histories project by First Presbyterian Church Altadena remembers how life was for Japanese Americans after incarceration. He claims that Pasadena had a good reputation among the Japanese, but that didn’t stop the discrimination, “the Japanese had to find homes within the “restrictive covenant” in which Japanese and other minorities were not able to live east of Los Robles or Marengo or west of Orange Grove.” Tajima said.

However, Japanese Americans were able to continue to form a community. Tajima recalls the lack of sports leagues for People of Color in the city, “We also could not participate in the community sports activities, so we formed our own Japanese leagues and played other Japanese teams.” Tajima said. 

Esther Takei Nishio

One of the first Japanese Americans to move back to the west coast was Esther Takei Nishio, a nisei (second generation Japanese) woman. Nishio grew up in Venice before herself and her parents were incarcerated. In 1944 she was approached by a family friend Hugh Anderson on behalf of Friends of the American way, an organization that fought to support incarcerated Japanese Americans during WWII. Anderson asked Nishio to attend classes and be a test subject for returning Japanese Americans. 

Nishio recalls her experience attending college (Esther Takei Nishio, interview by Darcie Iki and Sojin Kim, June 21, 1999, Online Archive of California).

“The plan was for me to attend school quietly, and see how I integrated with the student body and with the community. If all went well, then they would let the news leak out that a Japanese American had returned to California and that there were no problems, therefore, that all the others who had been chased out could return to their homes.”

Nishio went to live with Anderson, and her parents remained in an incarceration camp. The reactions were mixed. Esther recalled a few students escorting her to and from classes to make sure that she was safe because of the negative reactions Nishio received. 

Nishio: “The news about my return leaked out to the city newspapers, and then all the patriotic organizations protested… They marched down [to] the school board and demanded that I leave. And I guess there were all sorts of protests. Citizens spoke for and against a Japanese American being back.” 

Nishio saw attitudes start to change once soldiers, both Japanese and White defended Nishio against the discrimination she faced. They often showed her support through written letters. 

“It was interesting reading the articles and seeing how they would argue about having someone like me coming back, because they would consider me an alien. And it took servicemen to point out that there is a difference. [They pointed out] that they were treating an American citizen in a very terrible way, and they were fighting for all citizens. They were trying to protect the rights of people like us to, you know, go to school where they wanted to go to school.”

More Japanese students would begin attending Pasadena Junior College. However, Nishio’s impact was much greater, as she helped pave the way for the return of Japanese Americans to the West Coast in 1945. 

Pasadena Japanese Businesses today

Rafu Shimpo is a Japanese American newspaper based in Little Tokyo. It was established in 1903, and had a Pasadena branch in 1940 located just outside old town Pasadena. Located off Maple Street where the 210 highway now runs, and operated out of a home. The newspaper is the only surviving Japanese ethnic bilingual daily in California. Rafu Shimpo continues to be a news outlet for the Japanese American community, working out of their office in Little Tokyo, one of three surviving California Japantowns. 

A few Pasadena Japanese cultural institutions were established after the war, and continue to operate in Pasadena today. The Pasadena Buddhist Temple was established in 1948, just a few years after the wars ended, incorporated in 1956, and completed building in 1958. The Pasadena Japanese Cultural Institute was established in 1962 with the mission to educate the community on Japanese American traditions and culture. 

Over the last 84 years, none of the Japanese businesses have remained in Old Town Pasadena. California was once home to over 40 Japantowns, and now three remain in the cities Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose.

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