Dispute Simmers as Design Is Picked for War Memorial in Little Tokyo

A winning design was announced Monday for a monument to Japanese-American veterans, but the decision did not end a long-simmering controversy over whether the monument should pay homage to the living as well as the dead.

At a press conference announcing the design, rival groups agreed that the monument should list the names of Japanese-Americans killed or missing in action in all U.S. wars. They divided over whether it should also list the survivors among the approximately 13,600 soldiers in the Army’s 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team and Military Intelligence Service in the Pacific.

“It’s not in keeping with the way we were brought up,” said Hayato Kihara, 68, of Hacienda Heights, who wore a button that read, “No Names of Living on Memorial.”

“In the Japanese culture there’s no room for people patting themselves on the back. You don’t put up a monument to yourself and put your name on it,” said Kihara, who was among about 100 people who attended a morning press conference at the New Otani Hotel.

Kihara said “several avenues,” including legal action, are being considered to halt construction of the Little Tokyo monument memorial if it contains names of survivors. Kihara and other leaders said they had not been able to consult with their group on the latest plans for the monument but that they believe members of their group support their position.

Michael Barker, co-managing partner of the Barker-Patrinely Group developing the First Street Plaza, where the memorial will be located, said it was highly unlikely that a lawsuit could halt the project.

“I can assure you the design concept is in compliance with general guidelines the city set,” he said. “It was set up so the people affected could work out specific guidelines for the memorial and that’s what’s going on.”

Col. Young O. Kim of San Diego, who favors listing the surviving veterans, announced Monday that his group is trying to raise $2.5 million for the privately financed monument, the total cost of which is not yet known.

The monument will be designed by Los Angeles architect Roger Yanagita, a third-generation Japanese-American, whose parents were interned in Idaho during World War II. He earned a $10,000 prize.

His design--picked from 138 entries--calls for a gradually rising, six-foot, black granite hill sitting in concentric grass rings. The hill represents mountainous European World War II battle sites for the Army’s highly decorated, all Japanese-American 100th Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The memorial will be part of a plaza bounded by San Pedro, 1st, Temple and Alameda streets and will include a 65,000-square-foot expansion of the Japanese-American National Museum, a 426-room hotel, and a 26-story office building. Barker said construction would likely begin in 1993.

The veterans who fought so fiercely on Italian beaches and in French forests have battled each other for more than a year over the monument, arguing their cases vociferously in letters to a local Japanese-language newspaper, Rafu Shimpu.

Many had volunteered from internment camps to fight for the United States in World War II, believing that if they proved their loyalty to the United States, Americans would accept their families more easily.

“The 100th and the 442nd were honored with seven presidential citations,” wrote Masayo Duus in “Unlikely Liberators,” her study of the 100th and 442nd. “Five of the citations were for actions during the 20 days of fighting in the Vosges (Forest). That was unprecedented.”

Given the soldiers’ unified purpose during the war, their current dispute baffles at least one observer.

“I’ve talked to both sides and they’re all good people,” said Dan McGowan, chief administrative analyst for Los Angeles and the city’s chief negotiator on the plaza. “I can’t understand why they can’t come to grips (with a solution). I think the developer has done more than I would expect in terms of a compromise, but it seems as if every time he thinks he’s found one, something blows up.”