Activity Center Quietly Tends Roots to Japan

Tom Doi of Granada Hills says his non-Japanese friends are often surprised when he tells them about the Japanese American Community Center in Pacoima.

In the San Fernando Valley, “Nobody knows we have a center,” the 63-year-old Granada Hills resident said. “I tell people I’ve been coming here for years. . . . They say, ‘What are you talking about?’ ”

But for Doi and thousands of other Japanese-Americans scattered throughout the Valley, the center at 12953 Branford St. is something of a landmark. A fixture in Pacoima for decades, it serves as a hub for everything from Japanese-language classes to bowling teams.

Magnet for Generations

Built in the 1950s on land donated by Japanese-American farmers, the center is now a gathering place for large numbers of second-, third-, and fourth-generation Japanese-Americans, and a smaller number of Issei , or first-generation immigrants.

Unlike other Japanese cultural centers in the Los Angeles area, there has never been a Japanese-American community surrounding the Valley center. What there was of a Japanese-American farming community in the Valley dissolved decades ago, along with most of the Valley’s rural heritage.

According to those who use it, however, the center continues to thrive, serving as a point of contact for Japanese-American families scattered throughout the Valley. In doing so, it preserves a hybrid of the two cultures’ customs for the benefit of about 800 families on its membership lists.

‘An Old Friend’

“Coming here is a way of extending our traditions,” said Bob Kanemura, a 57-year-old computer engineer who is president of the center’s board of directors. “It’s like seeing an old friend. . . . It’s a way of preserving our past.”

The federally funded center serves as an umbrella for a variety of Valley-based Japanese-American organizations, including veterans’ groups, baseball and basketball teams, a gardening society, a golf club and a fishing club.

In recent weeks, the center also has become a source of support for a 32-year-old Japanese immigrant who is accused of drowning her children while attempting suicide by walking into the ocean. The woman, Fumiko Kimura, has been charged with two counts of murder, and is awaiting trial.

Along with other Japanese-American groups in the area, supporters at the center have argued that Kimura’s punishment should be tempered by an awareness of Japanese attitudes toward suicide.

In Japan, leaving children without a parent is considered nearly as bad as killing them at the time of a suicide. As a result, children’s deaths in such cases frequently are treated as involuntary manslaughter rather than murder.

Petitions for Leniency

Employees at the center have been circulating petitions asking for leniency for Kimura and have begun a drive to raise money to help pay her legal expenses.

But Kimura’s dilemma is in dramatic contrast to most of the more day-to-day functions of the Pacoima center.

On Saturday mornings, for instance, 125 Japanese-American children gather in rooms at the back of the center for classes in Japanese language and writing. Most of the children are third- and fourth-generation Japanese-Americans, and most speak only English.

Principal for 40 Years

Arao Hasegawa, principal of the school, has been overseeing the classes for 40 years, beginning when the school was based in a house in San Fernando.

Students are taught the rudiments of the language and basic approaches to Japanese methods of writing.

Hasegawa, who is planning to retire at the end of the year, said he also taught these subjects to the parents of many children in the classes.

“Many families who come here have forgotten Japanese,” he said. “Our primary goal is always to try to preserve the language and the culture.”

Judo Classes

On Monday and Wednesday nights for almost 30 years, Roy Murakami has has been teaching judo classes at the complex. Murakami, who is 60, learned the sport from his father while living in the Manzanar relocation camp during World War II.

Sego Murakami, Roy’s late father, was an eighth-degree black belt, and after the war opened a nursery and judo school.

The judo school was incorporated into the center in the late 1950s, with Sego Murakami as its founder and sensei, or teacher. The younger Murakami took over when his father retired.

Murakami, a sixth-degree black belt, teaches the classes with the help of a staff that includes his 26-year-old daughter Laura, who is also a black belt.

Murakami said he teaches the classes primarily out of habit, even though he has plenty to do at the family nursery.

Monthly Newsletter

Harry Nakada, a 60-year-old U.S. Army veteran and the owner of the Nakada Nursery in Sepulveda, oversees a monthly center newsletter, compiled in a tiny room above the center’s indoor basketball court.

The center also operates a federally funded senior citizen’s home, and sponsors yearly gatherings ranging from traditional Buddhist holidays to a Fourth of July picnic. Last week, it sent a contingent to an annual reunion at Manzanar.

At the end of a recent tour, Nakada said he was sorry that the center wasn’t better known, at least to the woman now awaiting trial on murder charges.

“We could have helped” Kimura, he said. “That whole thing wouldn’t have happened if she’d known there was a center here.”