declared a national historic landmark district in 1995 >> declared a national historic landmark in 1995 little tokyo near downtown los angeles has been the center of japanese culture in southern california since the early 1900s. american history tv toward little tokyo with bill she mo, shishima, a docent at the national museum mr. shishima was born in the little tokyo in 1930. and spent three years at heart

mountain relocation center during world war ii. >> good morning, we have a short leisure walk through little tokyo. right here is our largest icon. after world war ii and our local businessman wanted a place to tell our japanese american story and what happened during world war ii, and coincidentally these japanese veterans of world war ii also wanted a place to exhibit their story of world war ii. and at this buddhist temple, first built way back in 1925 was vacant, and they got in contact with the city and were able to lease it out for 50 years for one dollar a year. so, the little tokyo businessmen and were

incorporated 1985. they were able to open up the japanese american national museum in 1992 in this old buddhist temple. this temple is a replica from a temple in japan, but the canopy is -- the original is made of wood, this is made of concrete. and the architects, mike line he was, it was the first time builder of a buddhist temple and he was a specialist and making public -- so we're not sure how and why he had this northern wall, that is not japanese, that is middle eastern. but way back in 1925, that is when king tut's tomb was recovered, and also in hollywood, we have the egyptian theater built then. so maybe in theme with the egyptian theme that he made the egyptian wall here. this is the gateway to little

tokyo. home is a little tokyo. this depicts what happened here in the japanese american community, and in the center right here we see three people right there with a dedication of the candles. and then this young girl with a mallet. actually, she was supposed to be making japanese crushed rice, we call it mochi. however, is depicting the 1942 guard towel with this symbol, executive order, nine zero six six six. so, she's actually demolishing the memories of world war ii. up here, it depicts some of the activities going on in the japanese american community such as basketball, martial arts, dancing, and then some of the businesses that the japanese people were involved in and produce. marketing, and grocery. businesses the southern california area was done by japanese american way up there

on the upper right hand corner. we see where the third and fourth generation is taking care of we have there on the right hand corner we see where the third and fourth generation is taking care, the first generation japanese americans. people that came to japan for murmur erica first came here. we call them nisei a first generation. my parents were isseis. i was born here, i'm a japanese american, and uncalled nisei. of second generation, and my children would be sansei or third generation, and so forth. there you see a black generation. that's depicted in world war ii, little tokyo was a vacated because of executive order nine

9066. this was a ghost town. so japanese americans removed from california, arizona [inaudible] . north of here, people came from the south to work in the war industries such as the aircraft industry, the shipping industry, but they had no place to live. and conveniently, little tokyo was vacated, the population about 30,000 at that time, but we had close to 42, as much as 70,000 come from the south to work in the war industries during world war ii, and this was renamed brownsville, like the middle bronze, so the blacks from the south congregated here, and this was the jazz center during world war ii and the nightclubs recalled breakfast clubs because the night clubs were open to the wee hours in the morning and this is where charlie parker and many of the

black jazz artists started here in little [applause] tokyo. this photo we are all right here, right here, it's unique in that they have named tax on them. this is to show that during world war ii, people of japanese ancestry were incarcerated into the americas concentration camp. there were ten of them during world war ii. ansel adams and dorothy land, professional photographers during world war ii, we commissioned to go into manzanar camp, one of the ten camps here in california. ansel adams and dorothea lange were prohibited from taking pictures of the guard tower. they were profited from taking

pictures of the armed soldier, and they were prohibited from taking pictures of the barbed wire fence. they could take the barbed wire fence from a distance, but not close enough that you could see the barbs. so obviously, these pictures were not taken by the professional photographers to show america what america's camp was like during world war ii. right here, is hot steamed rice. it's put in a large bat, hit with a mallet, matched it down, and make it a raised paste. so just before new years, new years of being the biggest holiday in japan and still a big holiday over here for the japanese american, they make these mochi. and the season the mochi with soy sauce or soy sauce and sugar, and then they start putting in sweet bins in this mochi. now we have a japanese american concoction called mochi ice cream. that's right here in the japanese village plaza. right here is a scene of the

heart of little tokyo way back in 1905. that's before the automobiles. and then some of the industries that the japanese were involved in, there was railroading, citrus farming, also right here that's a picture bride during early 1900s, japanese came from japan to america to get rich and go back to japan. but that didn't happen. but it was basically a male population of, about 20 to one japanese men versus a female, so there's no social life. so some of them wanted to settle down so they started the picture bride system. the picture right system probably predecessor to eharmony. a person here would take sent a picture of themselves back to japan, usually a family or friend, and then a family or friend would solicit a bright for them. theat that time, every family hd

a family registry. all they had to do was register the female famous name into males family might register, and they'll officially mary. now, with picture in hand, it comes to the eu to america. usually, the point of entry was san francisco. and now, they say wow, that's handsome young man of 20 years old, and they find out that the groom looks like 30 years old. so they are misled. the picture was about ten years old. but then it really got out of hand some. people start sending a handsome dude's picture back to japan, and then the prospective bride came to america, they were really misled. so america asked japan to outlaw picture bride. so it was outlawed in 1920. but basically, it served its purpose, because now the population was about six to one male versus female. okay. behind me is a japanese lookout tower.

a fire lookout tower, and we call it yagura yagura. so, that's just it look out to our, way back in the late 19 sixties, the early 19 seventies, a little tokyo started deteriorate, so they want to rebuild a little tokyo, so this was just an alleyway. but we had a chinese developer, even though this is called japanese a village plaza, he chinese developer came through this place. we have about 50 shops here. and also, many of the shop owners are not japanese anymore. maybe we have some vietnamese or korean businesspeople. so they all look asian, yet, but this is called a japanese village plaza. right here we call this maneki cat. this is a little cultural learning. in america, if i go like this, what does that mean? that means come here. but in japan, they go this way,

so a little different. in america we go come here, this way, in japan, and go come here this way. so this cat is telling you to come in here. and you see at the base right here, a gold piece so the cat is telling you, come into our shop and to make money for us. i'm not sure why he had [inaudible] eyes but that's. it and japanese community has many says superstitious thing. sometimes they said the right-hand means something, the left-hand means something else. or there is a white cat, a gold cap, or a black cat, it means various things. but i'm not sure, i can't keep up with all the myths that go with the maneki cat. you look at the rooftop at the building behind me. what do you see there? you see gold fish, like? this is to ward off evil spirit. the fish is known in order to spit water. so, that's for fire protection. so if you go to nagoya, japan,

at the castle, you see a similar fish there. that's to ward off evil spirit or for fire protection. right here is one of three remaining grocery stores in the little tokyo area. and the pick population in the 19 thirties and forties, they had dozens of mama and papa type stores, the population about 30,000. population about 30,000 people of japanese ancestry within a three mile radius of little tokyo. today, this only remains three grocery stores in little tokyo, where the residential population of about 1000. we can tell me about japanese porridge poetry? what do we call the poetry? tanka and haiku. by the way, here we have it. haiku and tanka poetry. haiku has three lines and 17

syllables. five, seven, five syllables. and it does not have to rome. and it's about nature or feeling. and the expanded form of haiku's tanka. tanka has five, seven, five, seven, seven syllables and five lines, and it has talked about nature or feelings. tunisugihara tuna sugihara was chune sugihara. chune sugihara was a diplomat representing japan in lithuania, way back in 1938. and he defied the government's order to leave lithuania, because he wanted to help the jewish people there in lithuania to flee from the nazi coming to lithuania. so, it's recorded that he saved about 6000 jews from the nazis during world war ii in

lithuania. but when he came back to japan, he was an outcast, because he defied japanese government, not leaving lithuania when they told him to leave lithuania now. so the ship him off to mongolia, but the owner of the property over their years of jewish descent. and he wanted to honor chune sugihara so about ten years ago, he had chune sugihara's some come here for the dedication of the chune sugihara statue. right here is that the restaurant called kokekokko. does that mean anything to anyone? that's the japanese version of khaki duel to. so the japanese chickens quiet,, kokekokko, not-a-doodle-doo.

so this is a chicken house. this is one of five british temples here in the tokyo, and like the christian church, it was first established here in 1904, and this one went into the east side, and late 1970, 1975, they came back here. and i'd like to point out a little bit about the buddhist religion, when the japanese came from japan to america, they had to compete against christianity. i said compete, i hate to say it, but religion is also a business. if you don't have a combination, who needs a church or temple? so when they came here, they found out that christianity has church services every sunday, so now the protests here in america has church services every sunday. in japan, they only go to the temple for weddings, funerals, and special occasions. but now in america, we have it every day. plus, they got westernized. in japan, they do not have pews. they go sit on the floor,

whereas here, we have pews now. and a little bit, the difference about christianity and buddhism, but this temples basically are flat and built to the ground, whereas in christian churches go up and the church steeples go towards the heavens or the skies. so those are two basic difference. christianity goes up, but it goes down to earth. i like to stop here to show you what little tokyo used to be way back in the late 1800s. this was a commercial industrial area. so, people didn't want to be here. so many of the minority groups established here in little tokyo area, first there was a jewish population, a black population, a filipino population, and japanese american communities started way back in 1885. so this is remnants, the railroad track citing that

first served the industrial area of little tokyo area. so in the early 1900s, they had real estate confidence that they could not sell to the asians. so we were restricted living throughout los angeles or even working in various places of los angeles we could not do that. okay, we have these four holes here. what do you think those four holes were? well that's where the grass signage was. this is the james ervin foundation japanese garden. oh, about nine, ten years ago, little tokyo was raided, and people took all the brass signage from little tokyo to recycle and sell it. . again, right here, is where he brought signed used to be. this is for some of a time

capsule, way back in 1980, they buried a time capsule, activities and things going on here in southern california. so it's supposed to be open in 2080, but i hope they get to sign back up, because in 2080, no one will know what this signage is here for. is about right here, this is about the spaceship challenger. and many of you know know the challenger lasted about 70 seconds in the air, and we had the classroom teacher, kristie mcauliffe in their. we have the black scientist mcnair on their, we had judy resnick, the observer, we had the first japanese american astronaut, ellison onozuka on their. so this is to memorialize the challenger that burst after

about 70 seconds in the air. here, we have the oldest and largest japanese american newspaper out side of japan, the [inaudible] shinpo. it first started in 1903 as a maybe a graph copy about once a week. then in 1921, it became a bilingual newspaper in japanese and english. today, during its peak it had over 25,000 subscribers but today i understand they are down to about 10,000 subscriptions of the [inaudible] shinpo. we had right here dedicated to block national historic landmark. they happen to be 13 properties here on this one block. ironically, there's a christian church that was here built way back in 1942, and at the other end, some buddhist temple. there's a timeline here.

you see this charcoal area, this charcoal area symbolizes the 1940s and then the 19 thirties, 19 twenties, 1910, 1900. so it tells you what was there during that period. so you see in 1942, it says families are waiting for detention gathered here. so this is where my family had together because of executive order 9066, president roosevelt issued, general john d whip, commander of the western forces, issued 108 of these exclusion orders. and we were over here by [inaudible] street, where dos santos was born way back in 18 fifties. so i was born there, 80 years later's, in 1930. we got this execution order 33, david may the 3rd, 1942. we had to report to this church

on may the 9th. so we had one weeks official notice to leave our home and report to the government. here, we were supposed to come. we could only take what we could carry, basically two or three suitcases. we were prohibited to have a radio, weapons, cameras. we had to turn that into the government. then we boarded busses. we boarded buses, went to arcadia, california. arcadia, california, the home of the santa i need a horse racing track. my family was fortunate to live in the parking lot of santa anita horse racing track. i say fortunate, because migrant parents lived in the horse stables. and as much as i love my grandparents i hated to go visiting them because the stench of the prior tenants, horses. today this is the home of the east west players out of 200

seat theater. we have visual communication center here, and and the arts so this is the business that was one since it's a national historic landmark it cannot be moved across up on the church building. so this is not a church anymore, but this was originally a christian church that started in 1917 and built this church in 1922. okay, this sculpture is dedicated to japanese town. today there's about three japan town or japanese town left in the united states. prior to world war ii, we had over 40 japan towns throughout the west coast. but during world war ii, the word relocation authority suggested that the japanese do not congregate into little tokyo's or japan towns. but there's three remaining,

here one here in los angeles, one in san jose, california, and the other in san francisco, california. so this is a monument dedicated to the three remaining japan towns in the united states. on this historic landmark, we have quotes, courts of people that lived in the little tokyo area and they're comment about little tokyo area. so right here, it's said that people from the countryside as far away as center brianna used to come to little tokyo, get their japanese ingredients such as soy sauce and sake or tofu, because they couldn't get those items throughout southern california. they had to come to japanese town to get those ingredients. right here, this is by. she is issei our first

generation japanese. and she started the nikawaya food chain here in little tokyo. this was a center of little tokyo in. in its peak years, 19 thirties, 19 forties, and within a three mile radius, there was 35,000 people of japanese ancestry living within little tokyo. today, there's only about 1000 left. this is a koban. koban in japan no police operations. why should we have a police substation here? in the 19 sixties, seventies, the tokyo started to deteriorated. we had people pandering around little [inaudible] street, breaking into cars, so our tourists start to die down. so now, we have this koban here.

there's an office here for the police to be able to make the reports here. so they have the black and white parked out here, so they have a police presence in little tokyo. today, this is a visitor center. they have literature, and we have japanese speaking volunteers that helped the tourists here in southern california. this building here is very interesting. i didn't know it at the time, but my boy scout buddy owned this building when he was three years old. this is kawasaki building. why did he have this building when he was three years old? well, it was to circumvent the law. 1913, california passed the alien land law, which stated that if you're an [inaudible] to citizen ineligible to citizenship, then you can't own property in california. so to circumvent the law, the kawasaki family put this into his japanese american born citizen, so although he was only three years old, to

circumvent the law, he couldn't put it in his own name, because the japanese alien, so they put it into akira kawasaki's name. so this is one of the oldest japanese owned buildings in little tokyo. way back in 1903, saichi kito opened madrid shop known as the funjudosha. invented the fortune cookie. you heard of the fortune could be. but he invented the fortune cookie. but there is a disagree discrepancy, another japanese family here and it. but you're going to northern california they say no, the chinese invented the fortune cookie. but ten years ago, the chinese archivist from boston, massachusetts, got in contact with brian kito, the grandson

today, who's operating the shop. he said, indeed, his grandfather was the originator of their fortune cookie. however when seiichi kito invented the porch and kobe, he put haiku poetry in the fortune cookie. when the chinese back to 40 kobe cookie, they commercialized and put it out in the restaurant. this is the sperl building, built way back in 1882. what do you think they had? here this is before the automobile. this was a black smith shop, so the sperl building had blacksmith's shop here. historically, this is where the [inaudible] had their first meetings upstairs in the room up here. the pentecostals movement, way back in 1906. down this driveway, again, it's

one of the buddhist temples. this is built way back 1940. and though this temple was built as a community center, also, so in the sanctuary, they do not have permanent seating. so they could have, maybe, it dance hall during the evenings, or on weekends. miitake was a local professional photographer here in lau toyo mitaku was a local professional photographer in little tokyo. when he was ordered to go into the accounts, he wanted to take picture wherever he goes. but we had to turn our cameras into the government. so toyo mitaku kept the shutters and lens. he took it into manzanar camp, which is about 200 miles north of here, and then he had a carpenter make a box camera for him. this box camera is three times larger than the original camera, because today, we are using it as a slight projector.

so this slide projector shows activities going on in the japanese american community. toyo mitaku when he took these in, he had a comment to make a box camera, and he was taking pictures in manzanar camp, and then he got caught. but fortunately for us, we had a sympathetic camp director. camp director assigned a caucasian lady with toyo mitaku. toyo mitaku being a professional would compose the picture, said the shutters, and then the caucasian lady would come and click the camera. so technically stop taking pictures in 1942. but because of the camp director, i think we have the most documented pictures of manzanar camp because of the sympathetic camp director. right here is the national center for the presentation of democracy. basically it tells the democratic story of america, of

the various multi-ethnic groups during world war ii, like the all black tuskegee airmen, or maybe the [inaudible] against the filipino soldiers during world war ii, or they're hispanic soldiers, or the jewish soldiers. so this tells democracy during world war ii. >> you can learn more about little tokyo and the history of the japanese in the united states at the japanese american national museum website. recently on american history tv, a debate between educating for american democracy project author and daniel allen and critical marc malign of emory university about the best way to teach american history. >> why is it that you think that teachers are going to be teaching all of this trauma liberal frame? and that's cutting a lot of folks. people seem to think, you know, is this the case for, look, you

spent your decree at the emory university, maybe freshman seminars at emory, that's the sort of thing that's going to be discussed. isn't it possible that most secondary teachers in america

>> for american history tv on twitter, youtube, and facebook to learn schedule updates to learn what happened in this day and age, watch videos, learn more about for the people who have shape the american story. find us at c-span history. >> american history tv continues now watch more online anytime at c-span.org, slash history. >> next, on lectures in history, professor melissa bore who teaches a class about southeast asian migration to the united states, and post vietnam war refugees. she examines how laws and public opinion have changed over the past five decades, and emphasizes the difference between emphasizes immigrants, and refugees. >> the difference between immigrants and refugees. >> today we're going to today