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The following is a guest article written by Yuri Tsutsumi, who traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area with other graduate students from the University of Tokyo—under the leadership of —in January 2025. 91�Թ�/Stanford collaborates closely with the Graduate School of Education at the University of Tokyo and met with the students during their visit to the Bay Area.

Arriving at Jtown Pizza Co. on North 6th Street, our meeting place for the Japantown study tour in Downtown San Jose led by Dr. Gary Mukai, I noticed a striking contrast between the scenery to the east and west sides of the street. On the east side stood brand-new, reinforced-concrete construction apartment buildings, while on the west side was an ivory-colored, two-story wooden building with an archaic balcony. Right beside it, I spotted a restaurant sign reading “Minato,” a familiar Japanese proper name. As I walked out onto Jackson Street, I saw more signboards of stores and restaurants related to Japan and Hawaii. In the United States, it’s probably not unusual for the atmosphere of a neighborhood to noticeably change just bygoing straight down a street, but here it felt especially distinctive. Photo of Jtown Pizza Co. (below) courtesy the Graduate School of Education at the University of Tokyo. 

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The few-block area known as “Nihonmachi”—Japantown in Downtown San Jose—has retained much of its original appearance to this day. Local Japanese American organizations—as well as non-Japanese Americans, including Chinese Americans—have made great efforts to preserve and revitalize Japantown, including its once neighboring Heinlenville, a former site of a Chinatown in San Jose. Jtown Pizza Co. now occupies what was once a Chinese restaurant called Ken Ying Low. In addition to preserving Japantown as a historic area, the Japanese American Museum of San Jose was established in 1987. The museum showcases Japanese American life from the earliest generation of immigrants to the postwar period. Artifacts like soy sauce barrels and numerous farming tools offered me a glimpse into the lives of 19th-century Japanese American farmers. A wide range of historical archives on wartime internment, along with a recreated barracks room interior and exterior from one of the camps that gave off a dusty smell, allowed me to imagine the harsh conditions endured by internees. Through this study tour, I came to realize that, although many years have passed and the environment surrounding Japanese Americans has drastically changed, the everyday lives of 19th-century Japanese American farmers and those interned during the war shared much in common with our lives in Japan today—e.g., keeping a soy sauce barrel for planting, playing baseball and sumo with close friends and neighbors on weekends, going to a local bathhouse, and so on. Thanks to the people dedicated to preserving Japantown’s heritage and passing it down to future generations, I was able to catch a glimpse of what everyday life was like back then.

In graduate school, I came to appreciate once again how much I can learn from academic books and papers digitally archived in the university library. Those learnings were, of course, invaluable—yet at the same time, this study tour made me realize how much more I could learn by engaging all five senses. During the tour, there were the firsthand stories of Japanese Americans, the scent of dust in the reconstructed camp room at the museum, the umami-rich taste of loco moco gravy at the Hawaiian restaurant Hukilau where we had lunch during the tour, the strong California sunlight breaking through the clouds, and the texture of the wooden buildings. Although there are many ways and tools to learn, stepping beyond the university library to immerse myself in other people’s lives holds deeply important meaning. What makes this kind of learning possible are the people who continue to play a crucial role in maintaining the vitality of Japantown, the museum that collects, preserves and shares Japanese American history, and the generous financial support that sustain these efforts. I am truly grateful for this opportunity and hope that these learning experiences, which gave me insight into past generations of Japanese Americans, will continue to be offered to future generations.

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