The million dollar question seems to be: What’s going to bring young people to Little Tokyo? The fate of JTown, and the Japanese American community with historic, emotional ties to its streets and buildings, seems to rest in the answer to that question. Yet each time I’ve been asked this question (it’s least once a week, if not once a day) I go into a panic, because I can’t answer it either. I am the wrong kind of young person? Am I the wrong kind of Japanese American?
I have grown up hapa in a predominantly white, upper middle class community. I am the twinkie. I am the sell out. I am 71% white. Saturday’s sessions with Diana and Warren really resonated with me not because I, too, fight against racism and injustice on a daily basis, but because their stories literally reminded me of the struggle that our parents and grandparents went through, to exist as equals in American society and to define that existence, to define their own sense of self. Their struggles were against problems that I’ve personally been confronted with maybe a dozen times in my life, the legacy of their activism is something that I simply take for granted. Meeting with Diana, Warren, JTown Voice, and other LT activists reminds me why this question of youth involvement is so important, of what is at stake to them: the continuity of the community that they have fought for and guided, that they continue to fight for and guide to this day. And yet, with that theme of self definition in mind, how can I speak for all young people, for all Japanese Americans? Even before participating in NCI, among my own group of hapa friends, within my own family, I’ve been aware of the multitude of experiences and histories that can fall under the term Japanese American, of the years and differences in perspective that stretch between different “youths.”
I guess the best thing I can do is answer honestly and for myself: I like to hang out with my friends. I like to bowl. I like to drink tea. I like to take pictures of trees and flowers. So maybe we could erect a combination teahouse-bowling alley-flower garden at the Mangrove site? With a yarn shop on the side, as I also like to knit. Because that, my friends, is what would bring 19-year-old hapa girls from La Canada who like tea, flowers, and the occasional game of bowling to JTown.
(On a more serious and realistic note, community service projects, opportunities to meet and visit with seniors, Japanese language classes for the middle school/high school crowd who rejected J school as youngsters and now regret the error of their ways, cultural enrichment classes, and kendo would also do the trick)
What will bring young people to JTown? It’s an important question, yet ultimately I’d like to answer it with a new question: What would bring YOU to Little Tokyo?
