<Begin Segment 15>

JG: So looking to the future, you've touched on, on some aspects of the importance of Little Tokyo ensuring its survival. What do you think the future is gonna look like for the Japanese American community here in Los Angeles?

GF: Here in Little Tokyo?

JG: Yeah.

GF: I don't know. I question myself on that quite often. When I look at the makeup of Little Tokyo now, you go there right now to the restaurants, I remember leaving work one time, I said, "You know what, I think I'm just gonna eat here before I go home," and the restaurant was packed and I was the only Japanese in there. I was the only Asian in there and that was T-O-T-S, Tots. And you look up, you look at how it's evolving, how it's changing, the makeup is changing, and you wonder, are we still gonna be a Little Tokyo? I don't know. Lot of the business, as I mentioned, are not owned by Japanese anymore. Little Tokyo Mall, where Yaohan was, is not owned by Japanese. Japanese Village Plaza is not owned by Japanese. Savoy, the large condominium complex on First and Alameda, majority of the people residing there are not Japanese. So it is gonna affect Little Tokyo, but hopefully we'll always remain Little Tokyo. We'll always have the museum there, we'll always have Nisei Week, we'll always have JACCC, LTSC, we'll always have some place to come back for our roots. And then we have majority of the churches here, Centenary, Higashi, Union, Koyosan, Nishi, they're all located here. Zenshuji. So hopefully we can keep the flavor of it still Japanese, but because the Japanese are involved in so much, I kinda, I wonder what that holds for the future. If it is gonna change. Although it's funny because I look at my son and I look at my daughter. My daughter is very much into the Japanese culture. She'll come here for a lot of different events 'cause she's involved in her, president of her student union, Nikkei Student Union, so she'll come here for events. My son, not involved in the Japanese -- he doesn't have any Japanese friends at all. And so would he have any interest in coming back? I hope so. I hope he would.

JG: Do you think that there are ways that the community could make more overtures to bring Japanese Americans back to Little Tokyo, or do you have any specific ideas?

GF: I think the community has tried, like Nisei Week we publicize, we publicize not only in the Rafu Shimpo, but we publicize and the Daily News and the L.A. Times, about the festival. It's hard. You have to bring the younger generation back because the younger generation is the future, and so you have to bring it back. Although the reason why I do feel there's, there's some hope, I look at Nisei Week itself, I look at the board, and I used to be the youngest one there, now I'm one of the oldest. And the makeup of the board is changing where there are quite a few of your third, fourth generation involved. It's a new generation, so they are coming back. They do want to get involved and they are enthusiastic, and I think it'd really help in the future, at least for Nisei Week. I see some of the other organizations and I kind of hope that the same thing happens. I'm on the board for JACCC and we're going through our struggles, and I look at the board there and it's kind of old school. There aren't a whole lot of young people, but that's something they need.

JG: How do you attract younger people into those roles?

GF: Well, there are those who are naturally attracted to you. You find that in any organization. You find people who really want to get involved. It's really hard. You just have to find the right person and you, you actually have to go out and get that person. You can't just say, open your doors and hope they'll come to you. I mean, they will. There's some that will. But they're not gonna flow in. You have to go out there and get them, and that's what we try and do on Nisei Week. If we see someone, we think this person would be good for the organization, we ask them to please join, please help us, get to know Nisei Week, get involved. I'm doing that with my nephew, I did that with one of my other friends, Steve, and now he's involved. JACCC, I don't see it as much. LTSC, I'm involved with LTSC and they're, they're trying to get younger people involved, too, and they are. Then I'm on the board at Keiro, and there aren't a whole lot of younger people. So I think it's imperative. Once you start losing the foundation to the community, your George Aratanis, your Paul Terasakis, then where are you gonna go? They are such big benefactors. There has, we have to go out and cultivate the next generation.

JG: It's interesting, I don't know, I know in the past you've, you've at least given materials, I mean, one of the reasons I knew about you early on is because of your grandfather's World War I uniform at the museum.

GF: Yeah, you mentioned that.

JG: Yeah, yeah, and it was such a, made such an impression on me when I was working there. I'm just wondering what you think about the role that the museum is playing in preserving both the history of Little Tokyo and the larger history of the Japanese American community.

GF: I'm not, I used to be on the board for the museum for very briefly, but I'm not actually on the board, and I try not be involved in everything. You can't wear too many hats. And sometimes I look at the museum, I say wow, they have the same thing up here, the same displays. And so that's the only thing I question is that why don't they constantly change? But I think it is important for them to be able to preserve that history and to, to not only present the history to us, to my generation, our future generations, but other people of other than Japanese ancestry. I think that's very important, and I think they're trying to do that and that's why I see busloads of, of kids there from schools, non-Japanese. So I think it's very important. Although I do know the museum, they must be having a hard time, too, with this economy. So I hope they're successful because I think the vibrancy of, or the future for Little Tokyo depends on some of these organizations always remaining here. JACCC, LTSC, the museum, the biggest three organizations in Little Tokyo, so very important to us.

JG: Is there anything you'd like to talk about that we haven't covered today?

GF: Not that I could think of off the top of my head.

JG: Well, thank you very much for agreeing to be with us today. This is very --

GF: Has it been two hours?

JG: It's almost, yeah, almost been two hours, but I figured we've, we've covered a lot of material and I just wanted to make sure that if there was anything else that you wanted to cover we, that we could talk about.

GF: No, I think we did cover a lot. And I just hope for the future, and it's funny, when I was younger, eh, I didn't care about Little Tokyo. Even though I was involved with a lot of different organizations, I didn't really care, but I think that's a younger person's attitude. But as I've gotten older I realize I want to preserve this heritage, 'cause it's something that was here for us, for our ancestors, for our Issei generation. And to lose that, and then I think about the Rafu Shimpo, I knew the, I know the Rafu Shimpo's having problems, but it's very important to keep the Rafu Shimpo 'cause that also binds us together.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.