Building on Tradition

As an American soldier fighting to help his country win the war in Okinawa, Mits Usui often longed for the day when he could go home and build the picket-fenced house of his dreams.

“I remember the soldiers would sing a song about how they were going to make the San Fernando Valley their home,” said Usui, referring to the Bing Crosby hit “The San Fernando Valley.”

“When we came back from service that song stuck in my mind. I thought to myself, ‘What could be better?’ ”

But when thousands of Japanese Americans--many newly released from World War II internment camps--arrived in the Valley, they learned it wasn’t always the Promised Land portrayed in the song.

Many Japanese Americans were shut out from buying homes in white neighborhoods west of Sepulveda Boulevard. Worse yet, their teenagers were taunted as “Japs” by school peers.

Worried that their children would become discouraged or bitter--a growing number of the children were already getting into fights or committing petty thefts--a small group of gardeners got together and formed the Japanese American Club in Arleta, which evolved into the San Fernando Valley Japanese American Community Center.

Still located on its original plot of land on Branford Street in Arleta, the community center today serves as a meeting place for 29 organizations that offer fishing, dancing, Japanese calligraphy, judo and dozens of other services and activities. On Saturday, an opening ceremony for a 7,700-square-foot expansion was dedicated to pioneers like Usui, who helped establish it back in 1951.

The new building was donated by the Lockheed Corp., which previously used it as an employee cafeteria in Burbank. More than 500 people packed into the center’s parking lot Saturday evening for the unveiling of a plaque listing the names of 64 of the first-generation Issei and second-generation Nisei founders.

“When the early Isseis and Niseis founded this community center they had the foresight to create this for us,” said Gene Lew, a member of the center. “Now, almost 50 years later, history repeats itself and the center continues to grow.”

Few of the founders are still around to tell the story of how the community center was established. But there still are Usui, Pete Nakao, Ken and Hayako Kihara, Berry and Misuye Tamura, and May Sagara, who recall the early days with fondness and satisfaction.

“I remember a bunch of us gathered at a Japanese-owned nursery on Lankershim Boulevard and talked about how it would be nice for the kids to have a place to socialize and do what other teenagers did, like play basketball and hold dances,” said Usui, who made a fortune selling dichondra plants for new homeowners putting in lawns. “I remember one of the men at the meeting, Tom Ikuta, saying, ‘If we’re going to build a place let’s build it that good. And let’s build it that big so that we’ll always be proud of it.’ ”

Exactly how many Japanese were living in the Valley after the war ended is unknown because census figures at the time only recorded the number of people who were of “Asian ancestry.” What is known is that the U.S. government relocated an estimated 5,000 Japanese Americans to trailer parks in Sun Valley and Burbank following their release from the internment camps.

Other Japanese Americans had settled meanwhile in East Valley communities such as North Hollywood, San Fernando, Van Nuys and Sylmar--where it was easier for nonwhites to buy and rent homes. Many of them carved out livings by opening nurseries, working on the farms that still dotted the Valley, or as gardeners manicuring the lawns of the Valley’s burgeoning subdivisions.

To begin planning for a community center, a group of about 15 men began meeting regularly either at the Japanese school in San Fernando, where Japanese American children would learn to speak and write in Japanese and learn about their culture, or at Pete Nakao’s house in San Fernando.

The discussions often grew heated as factions formed, each with different ideas on how to spend $3,500 that the North Hollywood Farmers Assn., a group of Japanese farmers, had offered to donate toward establishing a club in the Valley. The Issei members were a more fiscally conservative group than the Nisei members, who were confident that they would be able to raise the money to pay off the land and build a community center.

“The Nisei wanted to take a chance on the future and spend the money,” Nakao said. “But the Issei wanted to hang on to the money and save more. Their way of thinking was, ‘If you cross the bridge you better make sure there’s something on the other side.’ ”

Complicating matters were the so-called Kibei, who were born in the United States but had been educated in Japan before the war. The Kibei, according to Nakao, were more aligned with the Issei. Despite the disagreements, however, the factions were united by their sense of mission.

“I remember Frank Sagara saying to us at one of the meetings, ‘Hey, we can argue, but when we leave the meeting we leave it here,’ ” Nakao said. “That was probably the key to our success.”

In the end, the Nisei won out and the money was used to make a down payment on a five-acre lot with a house on Branford Street at Remick Avenue that was for sale for $35,000.

May Sagara, whose late husband, Frank, was involved in the planning process, recalled how a Realtor by the name of Harold Tanner helped the men find the lot. Tanner was well known and well liked in the community because he was one of the few real estate agents who would sell to the Japanese after World War II and helped many of them get into their first homes by settling for small commissions.

“He gave us a break on the lot,” Sagara said. “It was just one of the many times he helped the Japanese in the Valley.”

Once they settled on a location, the next nine years were spent paying off the land, donation by donation, and clearing it themselves of trees and giant rocks. Next, the group took out a $127,000 bank loan to build the community center, a project spearheaded by the late Tom Ikuta, who was a landscape contractor by trade.

“Without Tom I don’t think we would have this place,” Ken Kihara said. “Twenty-four hours a day he was thinking about this place.”

“When thieves stole some lumber from the construction site, Tom parked his truck and slept there overnight to guard the place,” added Berry Tamura.

As the years passed, the number of families supporting the project grew. By the time the community center was completed in 1959, more than 100 families had joined in.

Today the center claims more than 1,000 families as members, with an estimated 12,000 Japanese living in the Valley as of the 1990 census.

In later years, the Japanese school and the famed Murakami judo dojo sold their buildings in San Fernando and had new ones built at the community center. Those additions helped transform the club into a community resource, hence the name was changed to the San Fernando Valley Japanese American Community Center in the mid-1960s.

The building of the Nikkei Village retirement home and the San Fernando Valley Hongwanji Buddhist Temple near the community center followed. Today, five generations have reaped the benefits of the community center.

“I never dreamed our 17-year-old grandson would come to play basketball here,” laughed Hayako Kihara.

“Without the community center the people would be lost,” added Misuye Tamura. “Over the years it’s been a place where we would gather and watch Japanese movies, organize picnics and carnivals, and it’s where our kids learned judo and attended Japanese school.”

The newest addition will bring the center’s total space to 20,000 square feet. The building will provide room for an auditorium, offices for counseling and computers and a lobby and a counter area.

Although the building was donated by Lockheed, the community center ended up having to take out $500,000 in loans to pay to move the structure from Burbank to Pacoima and to cover legal expenses incurred by cutting through bureaucratic red tape.

As a result, the dedication ceremony was a bittersweet event for some of the old-timers, who are honored to have it dedicated in their memory but are concerned as to how the younger generations of Japanese Americans will repay the loans.

But the third- and fourth-generation Japanese Americans remain confident that they will pick up where their forefathers left off, although in their own way, with modern fund-raisers in addition to old-fashioned donations.

So far, the center has received commitments for $300,000, leaving $200,000 left to be paid.

“The response from the community has been amazing,” said Michael Motoyasu, a past president of the center who spearheaded the expansion project. “It will all get paid and then we’ll need another project to work on. I can’t wait.”