<Begin Segment 26>

TI: And so you save Little Tokyo, and now I'm hearing that, okay, so you saved, when you saved Little Tokyo, it was almost all Japanese. But now, over the decades, it's changing, it's becoming more Asian.

MN: Right, the character is changing.

TI: And you said that's just the way things happened? What would you like to see in the future? If you could dream, because you were so involved with saving Little Tokyo, if you think about, like in the future, what would you like Little Tokyo to be?

FH: Well, I think that's the precise reason we have the National American Museum and so forth, to preserve what it was, what is history, and preserve the value system that used to exist and so forth. But we cannot, we cannot enforce that into the whole entire Little Tokyo area, because change is change. It changes by generation, people change, thinking change and so forth. And so if that is so, that is the course to be taken. That's, I personally...

TI: Thinking about how much has changed, they're doing more development, they're talking about the transit center and all that. When you think of change and where it's been, where do you think it's gonna go?

MN: Well, it's going to change more, because the transit center, it was mostly change in the property, you know, the Chinese and Koreans buying property and businesses here and there and so forth. Now, with the transit system coming from all over, down from the Watts area and down from the Hispanic center and so forth, it's gonna be more of a mixed, at least the customers are concerned. I do not know about the property owners and the business owners and so forth. But the makeup is going to change when the customers change and the business owners have to change their thinking, too. How to cater to this variety of, mixed component of the customers. And so I think, whether one likes it or not, it is going to be a gradual change.

TI: And yet, when you say "Little Tokyo," you got the community organized and working together. Again, when you think about the future of Little Tokyo, should, do you think the community should be doing similar kind of thinking and organizing for the future of Little Tokyo? Or do you think it should just evolve as, as it's going? What do you think the community should be talking about and doing right now?

FH: Well, I think that if this is the general trend, then no use fighting it. It's good to preserve what it is and so forth, that's the precise reason that we have the Japanese Cultural Community Center as well as the Japanese National Museum and so forth. But no use fighting the change that's going on. If there's a change, let it be.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.