Little Tokyo Historical Society: Sharing history and talking preservation at Historic Wintersburg

ABOVE: Yukio Kawaratani leads the group from Los Angeles-based Little Tokyo Historical Society through the tall grass toward the 1912 Furuta bungalow. Behind them at center is the 1910 Wintersburg Japanese Mission and, to the right) the 1934 Wintersburg Japanese Church.  More than a century of history with many connections with Little Tokyo history. (Photo, M. Urashima, April 8, 2017) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©

   Members of the Little Tokyo Historical Society (LTHS), http://www.littletokyohs.org/, spent a day in Huntington Beach, touring Historic Wintersburg and discussing shared history. Formed in 2006, LTHS is focused on the history of the Little Tokyo Historic District in downtown Los Angeles, California.  

   LTHS was one of the first supporters of Historic Wintersburg and our partner in the first fundraiser in 2012, a red carpet screening in Orange County of the film, Lil Tokyo Reporter, about civil rights attorney and newspaper publisher Sei Fujii.  Read more at http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-sei-fujii-legacy-little-tokyo-and.html

   Our thanks to Little Tokyo Historical Society for their longstanding solidarity and support, historical insight, and advocacy for the preservation of Historic Wintersburg!

ABOVE: Tadashi Kowta shares his memories of living in the manse (parsonage) and life in Wintersburg Village. His father was the Reverend Sohei Kowta, the clergy for the Wintersburg Japanese Church from 1938 to 1942.  The Kowtas were incarcerated at the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), Arizona, along with the majority of those from Orange County.  The Kowta family story is at http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2013/02/reverend-sohei-kowta-sunday-before.html  (Photo, M. Urashima, April 8, 2017)  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©

ABOVE: LTHS members make their way through the nopal ("prickly pear" cactus) on the south side of the Furuta barn.  The nopal were planted by employees of Rainbow Environmental, the trash company that purchased the property in 2004, and are not original to the farm.  The nopal is are on land once covered with goldfish ponds.  (Photo, M. Urashima, April 8, 2017)  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©

LEFT: LTHS members at Historic Wintersburg with preservation chair Mary Urashima (back left) and new task force member and Huntington Beach resident Frankie Edeza (far right).  Little Tokyo is a National Park Service historic district which, prior to World War II, was home to the largest Japanese American community in the United States.  Prior to World War II incarceration, Little Tokyo covered three square miles in downtown Los Angeles and had multiple kenjin-kai (mutual aid associations) representing 40 of Japan's 46 prefectures.  Read more about Little Tokyo's history on the National Park Service website at https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/asian_american_and_pacific_islander_heritage/Little-Tokyo-Historic-District.htm  (Photo courtesy of Michael Okamura, Little Tokyo Historical Society, April 8, 2017) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©

RIGHT: Little Tokyo is home to the Japanese American National Museum, http://www.janm.org/, which has hosted book signings and presentations for Historic Wintersburg, as well as the premier screening of the  documentary film, Our American Family: The Furutas of Historic Wintersburg, before it aired nationally on PBS.  (Photo, M. Urashima, 2016) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©

© All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.

The Sei Fujii legacy, Little Tokyo and Wintersburg

"Sei Fujii lived spectacularly and died spectacularly. It's like an opera," says Fumiko Carole Fujita, a founding member of the Little Tokyo Historical Society. 
                                                                                      Pacific Citizen, September 2, 2011


~Updated March 2015~

   In a unique collaboration, the Little Tokyo Historical Society, along with the producers, director and cast of the new film, Lil Tokyo Reporter, are coming to aid the preservation efforts of Historic Wintersburg.  

   Sei Fujii, on whom the narrative film is based, must be smiling.  

   The Pacific Citizen describes Sei Fujii's life, "with Depression-era drama, violent run-ins with gangster gamblers, stabbings, shootings, Supreme Court battles, a dramatic death — and not just one, but two scandalous lovers — (his) life has the makings of a juicy soap opera, or at least an interesting documentary."

The story of Sei Fujii
    Sei Fujii arrived in the United States in 1903.  Earning a law degree in 1911 from USC, he battled to protect Japanese American farmers, like those in Wintersburg.   Unable to practice law because he was a non-citizen, Sei Fujii started the newspaper, Kashu Mainichi, and began educating the Japanese community.  

   Through his newspaper, Sei Fujii warned farmers of gangsters running the Little Tokyo Club.   Many of the single, Japanese male farmers looking for a place to eat, drink sake and socialize were losing all their money in rigged card games.  Sei Fujii contronted the corruption, as relayed in Lil Tokyo Reporter.  

  What happened next has the makings of a great movie----and, it is real life.  The gangsters running the Little Tokyo Club tried to kill him.  Sei Fujii--trained in judo--fought them off and managed to survive.  Carol Fujita, one of the film's producers and a key researcher on Sei Fujii's life, said he was "found on Second Street near First in front of the New York Hotel by a pimp."  The pimp took him to the Japanese Hospital he had helped found in 1929. 

   Sei Fujii continued reaching out to the Japanese community to educate them and help them assimilate to American life.  He was known to travel to Orange County to meet with local farmers.

   With World War II, his active role in the Japanese community led to incarceration at the  Department of Justice Detention Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  (Note: Fountain Valley's first mayor James Kanno's father, Shuji Kanno, and goldfish farmer Charles Mitsuji Furuta---both Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission congregants---were taken to the U.S. Army's Lordsburg, New Mexico, detention center before being allowed to join their families at the Poston Arizona Internment Center.)

   Upon his release in 1946, Sei Fujii famously purchased a small piece of land in Los Angeles County and challenged California's Alien Land Law of 1913.  Through his efforts--and that of his long-time law school colleague and friend, J. Marion Wright--the law was overturned by the California Supreme Court in 1952.  Two years later, and only 51 days after being granted U. S. citizenship, he died.

ABOVE: Little Tokyo, circa 1935, the time period of Lil Tokyo Reporter. (Photo, Frasher Foto Collection, Pomona Public Library)

Memories of Little Tokyo
   Wintersburg farmers worked long days, so a trip to Little Tokyo was a special occasion.  Yukiko Furuta, Clarence Nishizu and Henry Kiyomi Akiyama, all Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission congregants, talked about Little Tokyo in their 1982 oral history interviews*.  Akiyama said he traveled into Los Angeles a couple times a month to watch baseball.

   "Other people from (Wintersburg) went to Los Angeles often, mostly to buy clothes or to see movies, and some people visited their relatives," explained Akiyama.  "There was already an established Japan Town in Los Angeles, which wasn't yet called Little Tokyo; the people called it Nihonjin Machi at that time, and it was already the center of Japanese laborers, who stayed in Imperial Valley in May and moved to Fresno in July or to Smeltzer (next to Wintersburg in North Huntington Beach) in October to work on farms." 

   Yukiko Furuta remembered living in a hotel in Little Tokyo in 1912, while her husband, Charles Mitsuji Furuta, built their new home in Wintersburg.  New to America, she ventured out to  Fugetsu-do, a Japanese confectionary store, and went  back to the hotel room to enjoy the treats.  She recalled her husband leaving her money for sweets when he left for work in Huntington Beach.  Later, living in Wintersburg and a little more acclimated to America, Yukiko Furuta would ride the Pacific Electric Railroad into Little Tokyo for shopping.

Left: Fugetsu-do opened in 1903 and still exists in Little Tokyo, an historic, artisan sweet shop.  Now at 315 E. First Street, http://www.fugetsu-do.com/  The mochi is worth the trip.

   "Let me tell you a little about that area during the time we lived there. Transportation in Little Tokyo was by yellow streetcar," relayed Nishizu.  "I remember that all fire engines were drawn by horses, not mechanical engines. There were two to three teams of horses in front of the fire engine which had a big water tank in the middle of the fire wagon. When there was a fire, the wagon rang a bell like the church bell."

    "I was born in an apartment building on the southwest corner of Jackson Street and Central Avenue. On the south side of this street, just north of the present Los Angeles police station's parking lot, there was a two-story building with a big community hall, where they used to have shibai, Japanese shows," continued Nishizu, who moved to Orange County as a small child.  "I remember taking a box lunch, bento, like they do in Japan, and watching Kabuki plays."

   Nishizu remembered Sei Fujii coming to Orange County and recalled the Little Tokyo gambling that concerned him.

   "Gambling among the Issei was quite extensive. Most of the gamblers were the single Japanese farm workers who traveled up and down California working on farms. These workers used to call themselves “blanket katsugi” (blanket carriers)," said Nishizu.  "Frequently they lost all of their earnings to the professional Issei gamblers from Los Angeles, Fresno, Sacramento, and other cities where Japanese farm workers stayed between jobs."

ABOVE: Huntington Beach's Holly Sugar Company, circa 1910.  (Photo, USC Libraries)

Wintersburg and Little Tokyo
   Some of the children of Wintersburg's Issei farmers went on to help develop not only Orange County, but also Little Tokyo.   During his oral history interview, Clarence Nishizu remembered Yasuo Goto, who farmed 180 acres of sugar beets for the Holly Sugar Company.

   "Goto was the father of  Dr. James Goto, M.D., who (maintained) a medical practice on East Second Street in Honda Plaza, part of the Little Tokyo district," recalled Nishizu.  "Dr. Goto has informed me that his father came to the Wintersburg area...and settled right next to Mr. Tsurumatsu Asari, the father of Harley Asari, who operated a goldfish farm on Warner Avenue east of Beach Boulevard..."(Note: this Honda Plaza area is now part of the Sawtelle Japantown district.)

   Goto lived near and most likely knew all three of Wintersburg's goldfish farmers, including T.M. Asari, Charles Mitsuji Furuta and Henry Kiyomi Akiyama. 

   "(Yasuo) Goto first was in the labor camp business. He arranged room and board for many Issei laborers from Japan who worked in Orange County," explained Nishizu to interviewer Arthur A. Hansen.  "From the labor camps, he transported the laborers on wagons pulled by horses, of course, to different farms in the area. This was in about 1910. The next year, 1911, Dr. Jim Goto was born. Later, the senior Goto went into farming California chilies, celery, cabbage, melon, and other vegetables."

   From farming roots, Dr. James Goto, went on to graduate from UCLA and then USC's medical school.  He set up his medical practice--West L.A. Medical-Dental Offices-- on the corner of Sawtelle and Mississippi, the former "Little Osaka", now designated Sawtelle Japantown, as of 2015.

The return of Sei Fujii to Orange County
   Sei Fujii, yet again, comes to the aid of farmers.  The Orange County film premier of Lil Tokyo Reporter will help raise funds for preservation of Historic Wintersburg, the five-acre home and farm of Charles Mitsuji and Yukiko Furuta, and the Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission complex.  Screening times are 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 17, and 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 18.  The cast, director and producers will be at every screening.

   The film's cast includes Academy Award® winner Chris Tashima (VISAS AND VIRTUE), Keiko Agena (GILMORE GIRLS), Eijiro Ozaki (LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA), Ikuma Ando (LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA), Sewell Whitney (BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, CSI-NY), with direction from Jeffrey Chin.  

   More about Lil Tokyo Reporter at http://ltreporter.com/blog/  Advance ticket sales online at http://www.regencymovies.com/movieRunDetail.php?movieRunId=17901&movieId=3432&theaterId=7 

------------------------------------- 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Lil Tokyo Reporter producers,director and cast---we are grateful for your kindness and interest in our shared history.  Special thanks also to REGENCY THEATRES and to the HUNTINGTON BEACH AUTOMOBILE DEALERS ASSOCIATION, KIM KRAMER and the HUNTINGTON BEACH DOWNTOWN RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION, and SCOTT LAND PHOTOGRAPHY for sponsoring the Lil Tokyo Reporter screenings.  Additional thanks to the HILTON WATERFRONT BEACH RESORT for sponsoring the after-hours reception Saturday, Nov. 17. Thank you for your generosity!

-------------------------------------

*The oral histories of Clarence Nishizu, Yukiko Furuta and Henry Kiyomia Akiyama were conducted in 1982 by the Historical and Cultural Foundation of Orange County, the Japanese American Council, and California State University-Fullerton Oral History Program, Honorable Stephen K. Tamura Orange County Japanese American Oral History Project.

All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.  

The Furuta farm, Wintersburg Mission and the Alien Land Law

The San Francisco Call headlines the Webb-Heney Act, which put California at odds with the Wilson administration and Californians at odds with each other.  The 1911 U.S. - Japan Treaty had established the right for Japanese to own or lease property for residential and commercial use. (Image, San Francisco Call, May 2, 1913)

   There simply is no easy way to convey the political turmoil that faced Wintersburg's immigrant farmers in the years leading up to 1913.  It was painful.  The kind of thing we don't talk about much, but should.  Today, a century later, it's an important civil liberties lesson for future generations.

   It's part of what makes the Historic Wintersburg site so rare.  

One of two Issei-owned properties in present-day Huntington Beach, the Furuta family home was built in 1912 on land owned by C.M. Furuta.  One year later, the Alien Land Law was enacted.  (Photo, September 2011) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   That Charles Mitsuji "C.M." Furuta and Reverend Hisakichi Terasawa were able to purchase five acres for the Furuta farm and Wintersburg Mission site was a feat of perseverance.  That Tsurumatsu "T.M." Asari was able to purchase land for the Asari market, farm and goldfish hatchery on Wintersburg Avenue, a small miracle.  

   In his 1982 oral history interview for the Honorable Stephen K. Tamura Orange County Japanese American Oral History Project, Henry Kiyomi Akiyama told his interviewers Arthur A. Hansen and Yasko Gamo that these two properties were the only Japanese-owned Wintersburg properties he knew of prior to the Alien Land Law of 1913. 

   Purchased between 1900 and 1909, they do appear to be the only properties in present-day Huntington Beach owned in the early 20th Century by Issei.  The only surviving extant property is the Furuta-Wintersburg Mission site at Warner Avenue and Nichols Lane.*

 Webb-Heney Act
   California's Webb-Heney Act (Alien Land Law of 1913) prohibited "all aliens ineligible for citizenship" from owning land and prohibited their leasing land for more than three years.  Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Asian Indian immigrant farmers were ineligible for naturalization under U.S. immigration laws.  White, African American and Filipino aliens were not affected.

   Proponents of the Act used early common law as a basis for their complaint, reverting to pre-American Revolution feudalism.  "An alien could acquire real property by gift, purchase or devise, but his rights in the property were subject to forfeiture by the crown..."(Sei Fujii v. State of California)

  

Excerpt from an editorial statement by Cornell-educated attorney Thomas V. Cator to the San Francisco Call.  The Call supported Cator's contention there were constitutional issues.  Those embroiled in the debate were not shy about characterizations of race and ethnicity. (Image, San Francisco Call, May 2, 1913)

 Protests
    Assemblyman Bloodgood--a Republican-Progressive from Inglewood--sought an exemption for farm leases. Some accused him of placating big farming and land interests.  

   U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan traveled to California at the direction of President Wilson to tour Japanese farm communities and rural schools; he saw successful farm enterprises and close to 100 percent enrollment in schools among the Japanese community.  Speaking to the California Legislature in 1913, Bryan urged cooperation between the federal and state government.

   William Carter, General Secretary of the International Peace Forum visited Sacramento, urging caution in the interests of world peace.   A delegation of land owners from the Island Delta District near Stockton defended the Japanese farm lessees from their region, traveling to Sacramento to to voice their protest "against the passage of any alien land ownership bill that would affect the value of property in San Joaquin County."  

Dr. Juichi Soyeda, Associated Chambers of Commerce of Japan and Japanese American Society of Tokyo, and Tadao Kamiya, Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, on a visit to the United States. (Photo, Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection, June 22, 1913)

   Dr. Juichi Soyeda--a Japanese attorney delegated by the Chambers of Commerce of Japan and the Japan America Society to study the Alien Land Law--was asked to speak at the Publishers Association of New York in 1913.   As reported by the New York Times, Dr. Soyeda Sure That in the End California Situation Will Be Settled Amicably (June 26, 1913), a representative of the Publishers group said they did not share the opinions of the California legislators and extended "only the most cordial feelings" to the Japanese.

   "The thinking men in Japan are well acquainted with the history of the relations between this country and Japan, and of the instances of American fair play which we have experienced," said Soyeda.  "The negotiations of the California question are still going on between Washington and Tokio.  I cannot but think that the outcome will justify the United States in the light of Christianity and humanity."

   The San Francisco Call took a stand to counter those who opined Japanese posed a social or economic threat, stating it was not based on facts.  The Call stated there were 158,360 square miles in California, of which the Japanese owned only 20 square miles after a 50 year-presence in California.  In a half-page statement, May 1, 1913, the Call reasoned, "it will take the Japanese 395,900 years to own California."  In the end, these efforts failed and the Alien Land Law passed.

The "Plain Statement of Facts About Japanese Immigration" published by the San Francisco Call, May 1, 1913. (Image, San Francisco Call, May 1, 1913, Chronicling America)

In Wintersburg
   Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission founder, the Cambridge-educated Reverend Hisakichi Terasawa, had encouraged local Japanese to purchase property and put down roots.  C.M. Furuta and T.M. Asari--both supporters of the Mission--listened.

   Wintersburg land owners, such as the Cole family of Cole Ranch (vicinity of Huntington Beach's present-day Ocean View High School), worked with local Japanese on a lease or crop-rent basis, including C.M. Furuta and Henry Kiyomi Akiyama.  In fact, the Cole family became so fond of Akiyama that they offered him a home on their property and later partnered with Akiyama on his first goldfish ponds.  

   Unable to purchase property himself as an Issei, Akiyama later purchased property through his Nisei children and post WWII became one of the most successful business owners in Orange County (the Pacific Goldfish Farm).

Sei Fujii v. California

   The Alien Land Law of 1913 remained in place until the Supreme Court of California decided in 1952 that it violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.   The decision for Sei Fujii v. California found that prohibiting land and property ownership to non-white immigrants was unconstitutional. 

   On November 4, 1956, a repeal measure, listed as Proposition 13, was passed by California voters to officially repeal the Alien Land Law, 43 years after its enactment.

Academy Award® winner Chris Tashima is cast as Sei Fujii in the upcoming film, Lil Tokyo Reporter.  Fujii--the publisher of Kashu Mainichi (a Japanese American newspaper)--graduated from USC law school in 1911 but was not allowed to become an attorney because he was not a citizen. (Photo, Lil Tokyo Reporter)

   After his WWII incarceration in Department of Justice Detention Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Sei Fujii purchased land in order to challenge the California Alien Land Law with his USC classmate J. Marion Wright.  Their story will be retold in the upcoming film, Lil Tokyo Reporter, set to debut in September 2012, http://ltreporter.com/blog/.  

UPDATE: The Orange County premier of Lil Tokyo Reporter is Nov. 17 - 18, benefiting Historic Wintersburg preservation. See http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-sei-fujii-legacy-little-tokyo-and.html

J. Marion Wright, circa 1913, "became the trusted advocate of the small but growing Japanese community. This young lawyer never let his friends and clients down." (DiscoverNikkei.com)

   Wintersburg Mission congregant Clarence Iwao Nishizu remembered  Sei Fujii in his 1982 oral history interview for the Honorable Stephen K. Tamura Orange County Japanese American Oral History Project.

   "I remember distinctly those days when the Issei were the discriminatory victims of the Alien Land Laws and Sei Fujii, Issei attorney and publisher...used to come to this school (the Anaheim Japanese School at La Palma and Citron Streets) to explain to our parents the latest findings of the court cases," recalled Nishizu.

   Nishizu told his interviewer, " it may be of interest to you to have me relate what Issei were like. They had guts, drive, and were willing to work to get ahead in the face of the discrimination of the Alien Land Law. They wanted to implant a foundation and steppingstone for the Nisei to follow..."

 The Sei Fujii property in Los Angeles. (Photo, National Park Service)

   The Supreme Court decision stated: "Congress, however, at least prior to 1924, saw fit to permit aliens who are ineligible for citizenship to enter and reside in the United States despite the fact that they could not become naturalized, and such aliens are entitled to the same protection as citizens from arbitrary discrimination..."

   "Although Japanese are not singled out by name for discriminatory treatment in the land law, the reference therein to federal standards for naturalization which exclude Japanese operates automatically to bring about that result,"  the Court concluded. "...The California Alien Land Law is obviously designed and administered as an instrument for effectuating racial discrimination, and the most searching examination discloses no circumstances justifying classification on that basis."

   "There is nothing to indicate that those alien residents who are racially ineligible for citizenship possess characteristics which are dangerous to the legitimate interests of the state, or that they, as a class, might use the land for purposes injurious to public morals, safety or welfare. Accordingly, we hold that the alien land law is invalid as in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment."

The American Dream - Historic Wintersburg's Furuta family home and barn. (Photo, September 2011)

*The Tsurumatsu Asari property, which was the site of Wintersburg's Asari and later Tashima Market, reportedly was located across Wintersburg (now Warner) Avenue from the Furutas east of the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks, in the general area of the Liberty Christian School.

A series on USC attorney J. Marion Wright, written by is daughter, Janice Marion Wright LaMoree, can be found at http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/authors/lamoree-janice/

Readers also may be interested in reading about the effects of the Alien Land Law on a Southern California Chinese family in the Jue Joe Clan blog, http://juejoeclan.blogspot.com/2010/08/details-jue-joe-and-alien-land-law.html

All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.