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MN: Anything else about redevelopment you want to share about?

Mo N: Yeah. I think that the main thing, the gripe I have about the redevelopment and its process is that my understanding, as I understood it, was that redevelopment was supposed to benefit all the people. And the redevelopment, the forces that were going to participate in the redevelopment was supposed to represent all the forces. When it comes right down to it, then the actual process, the law talks like that. What actually happens in practice is that first when they formed the Community Development Advisory Committee, they talked about bringing in businesspeople internally in the community or in J-town but outside. So it was heavily laden with businesspeople. And then those of us, the young people that were part of the AI office. And so instead of really bearing down at us organizing people, the tenants and the workers and people who lived down there and have them come to the redevelopment meetings, we pretty much took it on ourselves to represent their interest on this thing. Once we get that housing finished, then the door gets opened up to all the corporate interests and the insurance and all these other people started pouring in, 'cause not there's some big money coming down the pipe. That's when we get kicked out, we participate early on in the development of the cultural center, booted out. We participated in the development of the Pioneer Center, booted out. All the institutions that we thought would represent all of the people, we didn't say just workers or oppressed people, poor people that live down here. We wanted, whatchacall, like the Pioneer Center. The Pioneer Center's supposed to help everybody down there, not just old people. Young people are supposed to have a place to come and hang out and talk to the old people. Supposed to be where the generations could mix and do things together. That's what the hanami was about, all that kind of stuff. No, petty bourgeois interests got a hold of all that, they took it and ran. And the only people they benefited was themselves and screw everybody else, young people and the poor people.

MN: They definitely kicked out the young people.

Mo N: Yeah.

MN: You mentioned there was a flag burning on First Street. What was that protesting?

Mo N: Well, after the Keizai Shimbun article came out about "Big Tokyo was gonna take over Little Tokyo for showcase for Big Tokyo," we figured, so we started raising hell in all the meetings and stuff like that, you know. "Fuck these goddamn Japan corporations. We need to put some kind of limits on their participation, gonna let them just buy their way in and stuff like that. And we were doing this in the community as a whole. And especially a lot of our young people, youth organizations. So they formed the Van Troi Anti-Imperialist Youth Brigade. I don't know if you know who Van Troi is. Van Troi is a young man who was part of the anti-Vietnam War effort here in the United States. He was a Vietnamese student, he was sent back to Vietnam, in fact, deported, and he was taken off the airplane and executed right there on the tarmac in Saigon. And he represented the youth of the world, standing up for justice. And so we had a Van Troi Anti-Imperialist Youth Brigade, about two or three hundred young people, beautiful, they were marching in step, the little pop and all of that, it's bad. Yeah, unfurled that Japanese battle flag, it wasn't the hinomaru, it was the battle flag, the one with the rays on it. That's the one that Emperor Meiji gave to Togo Taisho when he defeated the Russian navy. Japanese battle flag, and put that sucker out there, put a torch to it. Everybody shit a brick. [Laughs] Oh, man. This is what we hear later, is that Reverend Toriumi is supposed to be the spiritual head of Little Tokyo, he gets called in to the consul general's office and gets chewed out. "What the hell are you young people doing?" and blah, blah, blah. As if he could control us, hell. Would listen to him, but he ain't gonna control us. He calls me. "This is democracy, man. This is America. Go to hell." And young people are gonna do what they're gonna do.

I was with another organization, and what we did was we went up, climbed the Kajima Building, unfolded some banners and stuff from up there. That was Van Troi, who was the other one? We had another anti-imperialist group taken from the Vietnam War. I think we dropped some M-80 firecrackers up there, make a big noise, disrupt the whole damn thing. But yeah, that's what it was. It was to expose Japanese imperialism, that they weren't our benefactors, and for the community to be aware.

MN: So how many, like, seniors or low-income people do you think were displaced from all this redevelopment that went on and all the hotels that were destroyed?

Mo N: How many?

MN: Yeah, how many do you estimate? A thousand people?

Mo N: Probably close to a thousand. You had New York Hotel, the Sun Hotel, and the Allen Hotel were the biggest. They must have had close to four or five hundred people in there at least. And all the smaller hotels, yeah. And that's another thing, betrayal. The redevelopment law says that those people who are displaced are supposed to have the first opportunity to come back. When me and a friend went to check up on somebody at the Redevelopment Agency, Little Tokyo Redevelopment Agency office, we asked where this person was, and they didn't know. So we asked them, "Well, how in the hell are you gonna get a hold of them when the new housing goes up?" [Shrugs] Which means basically that they didn't give a shit. They got 'em out, paid 'em off, if they raised enough hell, then that was it. But they did a lot of it, they did go in and pay off a lot of the Buddhaheads. See, that's what they did at the Sun Hotel. When they bought it, what made the intention to buy it, then they went in and gave the people I forgot how much money it was, to leave, and ninety percent of the Japanese people left. Well, instead of closing the goddamn building down, they left it open and let that sucker let in Latinos. Then when they came down to really demolish the building, they didn't want to pay the Latinos to leave. That's where LTPRO did some of its great work, stood up for them and the people got some money out of that. But that's the kind of stuff, prejudice or kind of playing the racist game for the white man. So, yeah, it's the ugly stuff like that that's in the history of the redevelopment process. [Laughs] I lost your question.

MN: No, you answered it.

Mo N: Yeah? Okay.

MN: I mean, we can go on about redevelopment, but is there other points you want to make before I go on to another subject? 'Cause I could talk about another hour on redevelopment, but probably not. [Laughs]

Mo N: Yeah, we can't. Well, I think the parting shot for me would be that we've lost the battle. This place is gone. You come here at night and that's all you see, looks like salt and pepper out there. And the reason is pretty clear. There's housing, but it's all high-end housing, it's all for yuppies. And that what we need to do in order to revitalize our part of J-town is to fight for housing, low-cost housing. And we know how to build it, we know that modular, prefabricated housing, all we need is land, we don't need a lot of land. And they got land all over this place, the city does. They owe us. They didn't give us nothing back, compensate us nothing for the Parker Center area. That's supposed to come back if they don't use it for that. It's like Indian treaties, if they're not using it, they got to go back to the tribe. Bullshit. They ain't giving back nothing to nobody. But that's the promise, they said that. Cold north side of First Street, that whole area back there. So that's a good solid two blocks of perfectly good land that could be used to benefit our people taken away. There's still a score to settle, and we need to get out there. So that's why I'm waiting; as soon as this rising that we see coming now, we see Occupy L.A., so that's the bellwether. Clang, clang, clang, round three. [Laughs] Yeah, when the youth hit the street again, we'll be back.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.