Once the center of social and commercial life for LA’s huge Japanese community before the internment camps of WWII, Little Tokyo is now a business hub and tourist destination grappling with its difficult history

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 22, 1986; designated a National Historic Landmark on June 12, 1995

It’s impossible to capture the scope of Little Tokyo’s history and its importance to Los Angeles in a single post. I can tell you of its cultural riches, that this part of town taught me to appreciate ramen and craft beer, that I’ve heard exquisite jazz and seen revelatory art installations here, that I’ve seen a wider variety of architecture within its bounds than in many other parts of the city. There are museums and monuments and temples and gardens and bustling outdoor marketplaces…something for everyone.

While most of my experiences with Little Tokyo engage with things that are actually, physically there, a critical piece of its history involves what is not there, what was taken away. That’s what sticks with me most about walking around the area today. 

First settled in the 1880s, the Little Tokyo attracted waves of Japanese immigrants over the ensuing decades, mostly men drawn to LA’s agriculture industry. A “gentlemen’s agreement” signed by the US and Japan in 1907 prevented Japanese from immigrating to the US for work, but allowed students and spouses of Japanese who had already settled here.  

At its height before WWII, Little Tokyo was home to some 35,000 people of Japanese descent, America’s largest population of Japanese immigrants. Most of them lived within a few miles of the commercial center. There were thriving schools and businesses, newspapers and religious institutions, banks and community organizations. 

Then Pearl Harbor happened, and Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 forced the residents of Little Tokyo – citizen & non-citizen alike – into internment camps. Many of them lost their jobs and businesses. Blacks flooded in from the south and midwest in search of work, ballooning the population to an unsustainable ~80,000; Little Tokyo transformed into “Bronzeville,” with its own unique culture and commerce. When the war ended and the wartime labor market dried up, so did Bronzeville; many of the Japanese American residents that returned opted to live outside of Little Tokyo, including a large population in Boyle Heights.

Decades of development have changed Little Tokyo into a business hub and tourist destination, more than a thriving ethnic enclave. Thankfully, this community has not let us forget its past. All of this history is well documented on placards, monuments and the lettering etched into the sidewalks of First Street, which commemorate the businesses that used to stand where we now line up for sushi and ramen. The Japanese American National Museum on First & Central broadens this story beyond the boundaries of little Tokyo, and Go for Broke National Education Center tells the remarkable story of the Japanese American servicemen who fought for America in WWII – despite their family connections to the enemy, despite their racist, dehumanizing treatment by the US. 

Even as it holds onto its roots, Little Tokyo has also moved on. It can still be a thrilling place to walk around, with its own character built of the friction between old and new, traditional Japanese and modern American. Century-old brick storefronts abut the gleaming mirrored facades of multinational banks; walk down the empty office plaza just south of 2nd street and you’ll find a gorgeous, traditional Japanese garden. Tucked away in an alley next to the Japanese Village Plaza tourist mecca is the Koyasan Buddhist Temple, dating back to 1912. And just down the street, across from the Geffen Contemporary @ MOCA, is a massive fig tree planted by Koyasan Temple members in 1920. It’s one of the few living things in Little Tokyo that was there when this part of the city was in its heyday.

Recommended Reading

+Little Tokyo Historic District @ NRHP website

+Little Tokyo Historical Society website

+Excellent history of the three waves of Little Tokyo’s redevelopment, through 2012 (KCET)

+History of the Far East Café (now Far Bar), a famous Chinese restaurant in Little Tokyo opened in 1935 (AsAm News)