<Begin Segment 24>

MN: Now, you were really involved in trying to save Little Tokyo from further encroachment from City Hall. But you did not even grow up in Los Angeles. Why was it of a concern to you to save Little Tokyo?

FH: Well, being the executive secretary to the Chamber of Commerce, it was more or less the hub of all the activities of the Japanese American community. Because traditionally, in the line of the prewar Japan Association, all these, those living in this area had something to do with the Chamber of Commerce. It was like the headquarter. Like they had the Little Tokyo Businessmen's Association, the Nisei Week festival, the Japanese American Hotel and Apartment Association, and whatever, you named that, it was centered around the Chamber of Commerce. Even when they had the Noguchi case and so forth, Chamber of Commerce was very deeply involved in this.

MN: You're talking about Thomas Noguchi, the foreigner.

FH: Yeah, that's correct. And so when... there was a city government, rumor that the city government was going to take one side of Little Tokyo, East First Street. It's not the, shopping district had to be a street on both sides, I mean, the business on both sides of the street, and we had to fight that. And so there was a group organized, I think Howard Toriumi was one the leader in those days, who was the minister of the L.A. Union church. But he said we have to do something, and then Bruce Kaji and so forth, we got together. And first, I worked with the property owners. There was a group called the Little Tokyo Property Owners Association, found out who owned those properties and so forth. And then, this news came to the... I think it was Mike Masaoka's brother, who was in San Francisco somewhere, who was working for the federal government, and who knew about these kind of redevelopment and so forth. And so he kind of stepped in. And then Lovret... I forgot his first name.

MN: Reuben Lovret?

FH: Reuben Lovret, yes. He worked for the city in this area. And so he became the advisor to our group. And then he said that to do this, we had to organize the citizen's group. Not only the property owners, but the businessman, and all avenue of service, everybody has to pitch in. And so the LTRA, the Little Tokyo Redevelopment Association, as an official group was organized. And he gave us all the way to go, the guideline as to what to do and so forth. That's how I got involved in LTRA.

MN: Did Mr. Lovret ever share with you why he had to meet with you folks during his lunch hour or after work?

FH: Well, I do not recall that, but I think there was an article in Rafu Shimpo, something about Lovret's thing, isn't it? Yes.

MN: My understanding is that his boss did not want him to meet with the Little Tokyo group. He was very anti-Japanese.

FH: Oh, yeah? I didn't, I didn't know about that, but he was very sympathetic toward, he was French, I think, isn't it?

MN: Norwegian.

FH: Oh, Norwegian?

MN: Norwegian and Spanish.

FH: Oh, was it Spanish? That so? That so. He was a great man, yes.

TI: Now, were there a lot of arguments in the Japanese community during this time about how this should happen in terms of how to fight the encroachment by City Hall, were there different, I guess, strategies or ideas of how to do this, or were people pretty cohesive?

FH: I think like in any organization, there's always the pros and cons. How can we fight the government, let the government do whatever they think is good? And there's the other sense that, "No, that's not right, we have to fight for our own sake." But anyway, we got together, and Bruce Kaji was an official leader. He was in real estate and so forth, he knew the business real well. And so we -- [sneezes] -- excuse me. We stuck together and fought the way through, yes. And first thing was they established the boundary. I think there's a map and so forth as to, between this street and this street. And then gradually went into the political activities with the city as well as the federal government and so forth. Because federal is involved in this as well.

TI: But there's something you said that struck me. Because many of the people working were put into camps. And so here was a case where the, where they pretty much had to follow what the government decided what to do. In this case, they decided to fight against the government.

FH: Yes.

TI: When they were fighting against the government, did their incarceration during the war, did that ever come up? Did people say, "We have to fight because of what happened during World War II"? Or did any of that sort of discussion or talk come up in these meetings?

FH: I don't recall. I don't recall the tie between what happened during the wartime and after the war. I don't recall --

TI: Or just the feelings. Like they, "We followed the government during World War II and we were put in camps. This time we're gonna fight against them." Did you ever hear anything like that?

FH: No, I don't think so. I don't think so.

MN: Anything else you want to share about the Little Tokyo, saving Little Tokyo? 'Cause I know that's a huge segment in itself, but I just want to have a little brief comment from you regarding anything else you remember. Did you folks think you could save First Street North?

FH: That's right, that's right.

MN: I mean, did you think you could save it? Because they wanted to take that over. They already took one block of First Street for --

FH: That's right.

MN: Eminent domain.

FH: And so it was going straight through, which was going to cut off completely the north side of East First Street, yes.

MN: That's a big battle.

FH: It is. It was.

MN: Did you think you could win it?

FH: Well, I don't recall win or lose. I had to fight, and so I fought and did real well in that fight, yes.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.