<Begin Segment 19>

BN: With regard to JANM, though, what your group did, was it the conversion or the restoration of that old Nishi Hongwanji building?

FS: Yeah. Well, that's kind of meaningless other than the history of it gave the springboard to the new building Obata did. So, you know, architects are, we were just a tool there. But we should feel satisfied that we made it happen, yeah. And I think, but it's never... see, what's hard for me is it makes it sound like it's about me and it's not. Because I got my name on plaques and all that BS. That's why I hate to be the last man standing. [Laughs] Well, because unless you had a practice of some... I hate the word significance, too, but then some people knew I did the Civic Center over there, and Carson, West Covina. And so maybe that makes me qualified, but I used to look for people to respect that could teach me about the field. And I had some of these guys spend the time to talk to me, and I had the chance to watch some of them. And I also, later on, got to know some of the, these guys that were at the end of their careers, that were the "giants of the field," guys that did the Kennedy Flame and all of Washington, D.C., and all this stuff, and he was Jackie Kennedy's lover. He's the only guy that quit on me. I got a lot of architectural tales, but see, I guess JANM, if it is the hold, where you hold the whole story of JA, then it seems to me, those JA A and E, Architect Engineer, they all contributed as much as the current people. I know George Takei has done a lot for the... but they don't talk about architects other than Obata and Yamasaki. Yeah, talk about Dyke Nagano, talk about Kaz... I forgot his name, Shimamoto, something like that. I could find it. But they were talent, and they didn't have that opportunity to be in the big leagues, which my observation when I, early on, got involved in the East Coast as well as the West Coast, I could see where the money and power, you know, it still starts on the East. There's still, the schools of the East Coast are the Ivy League schools, all that stuff, it's all still... and maybe that's rightly so. I'm not criticizing, but the reality of those that contributed to the start of JANM, I think it's unfortunate that those people that I knew, that was on that original team, aren't acknowledged in a way that it was critical. You can't start any project without architect, that's how it is. I mean, what can I say? I'm not trying to criticize the institution and what it has become as much as the idea of where it has to go. And it has to have a clear understanding of how this thing started. I guess that's what people like yourself know more about the history and are interested in the history. There's no JANM without some architects.

BN: Very true.

FS: Well, there's some Nishi Hongwanji people that did it. I don't know the whole history of that. I didn't have time to study history of all the churches, but I know some of the guys that came later and they were involved in the cultural center stuff. Well, so I should remember names, I don't anymore, but Miyako Hotel, the Kajima building, all that stuff and how Kajima moved over here to Monterey Park and to put an office in and develop as they could. And the irony there is I'm related distantly to the Kajimas through the Shimazu and all that, my grandmother's side. It's in that whole, way big family tree. So that was the only company I visited when my relative picked me up and showed me Japan in 1964, the Kajima corporation. Takase, I'm thinking, he did a lot of Japanese town architectural stuff. But he was, I think he might have been born in Japan, I'm not sure. Because he spoke like he did, but I know he was good friends with the younger president of Kajima Corp, who's now gone or he's my age. That's kind of interesting, huh? The journey into the projects, and they talk about the people in J-Town. Well, when we were involved in JANM at the beginning and even before Nishi Hongwanji, there was, the guy who was married to Kats Kunitsugu and her husband were very involved.

BN: Kango.

FS: Yeah. He was trying to help people like myself, actually, my good friend that was a little bit older, Mark Horie, who, he was trying to get people like that involved in J-Town through the CRA, that didn't, the commitment to help us, or help Japanese American grow from there, didn't, there was a gap in which it died, and I guess now the Watanabe who tried to do things. But that was kind of interesting, that whole process. Some of the people they brought in to make J-Town theater and things like that, I think that was Kajima on that theater. Well, the money, what's the gentleman's name who's on every building? They give grants now.

BN: Aratani.

FS: Aratani, yeah. Oh, see, I knew Aratani briefly only because of the job we did at the retirement home, Keiro. So I know a little more about the history and the development and the motivation, so some of the young activists that's going after it, they didn't understand the full story of where the commitment was. So it wasn't fair to the board people that came in later, someone like Frank Kawana that I got to know, who took the heat for the sale. It was a lot of circumstances that went that way. I know when Aratani, I think Wada, the people with money, they went to Japan and they got Kajima involved again. I didn't even know at that time how they're related. So we, as architects, we worked with Kajima corporation, because they held the purse strings in a way that they controlled the budget. Because they had to get it within the budget because they were contributing so much to the process. So it was a very unique project because they had to import this concrete forming system that they used. Most concrete buildings at that time were built with, you put a lot of stick work up and you form it and then you pour the concrete. This was called tunnel form, and it was used exclusively abroad, and they started bringing, Kajima brought it into, I think, Hawaii, and then they started building condos because it was restricted width all that. So that concrete, they can move it daily, so you were building a concrete building fairly quickly. And that was unique because the building department didn't know anything about it, so it took a little bit of jockeying by Kajima, and they were able to pull it off and get the project built.

But it was, all of that was orchestrated in a way that Aratani and Wada, when I heard some of the early discussions, they were thinking Issei and Nisei. They weren't necessarily thinking of the Shin-Isseis you call it, or the next generation coming from Japan. Because those people didn't have any money, but Aratani and Wada had the businesses and then they had the connections in Japan, and they made it happen. So yeah, there's a lot in that whole process, which is like JANM, but it's all, it's a lot more behind it. I didn't mean to get away from JANM, or Little Tokyo. And the early people that really made the effort, I think, people seemed to forget easily, the real early people, the Niseis that came back. You know, they were different than people that had money. And even those people didn't have much money. They would talk about Toyo and his family, and they had a house or whatever in Boyle Heights. My dad knew Toyo real well and I knew Toyo. There's a difference between not having anything when you start. Fortunately, Aratani had some land in Guadalupe, which is kind of interesting that I made a stopover there. I'm only an observer of this process, and I did my little share to be a part of it. That's JANM for me. I'm only discouraged when they had issues at the top and they changed. I don't think... I'm not sure how much clarity there is in the depth of the history. I know you put programs on and do exhibits and all this. Well, anything that's clear is the camp thing, that's pretty straight up, and it's excellent. But every other story comes through there, everyone has a different story. But they forgot one story. So that's sort of my cause even by spending the time with you guys on this thing, is there were a lot of good people. There's no reason you can't write about good people even if they're not famous people, or they're not as famous as 442. There are other very good architects, not just two. And I don't mean to belittle their skills or talents or success, but it was disappointing to me when the local community seems to know nothing about that group, or very little about it. That's all I can offer about JANM.

BN: I think that's a good place to finish.

FS: J-Town? Oh god. [Laughs]

BN: And the architects.

FS: Well, I really... you know, like the thing I got upstairs, or the guy gave me, called the Prime Mover, you know, the little telephone pole slice. They gave it to me because during that time, also at Head Start, we worked trying to help people. All the parents were really getting uptight about all these playgrounds and kids getting hurt, that they, Pasadena paved everything, because low maintenance and hard to maintain and everything. So parents started rolling up their sleeves, and dig out the asphalt, bring in sand and build these tire swings and all this kind of stuff that I helped initiate when it was Head Start through my, some of the program things. So that really... it was only a period, but what was happening was that even the playground equipment at that time, they had limited stuff and it was all how to tell, man. You couldn't touch it, it was all galvanized. So kids didn't play on it much.

BT: Yeah, it was hot. I remember that now.

FS: Yeah, so there was a transition. And they developed, since then they developed other equipment and they're coated now so you don't burn your hand with those things, the early ones, you run around, man, they were hot.

BT: Yeah, they were.

FS: So that all happened about that time. And so I guess architects can do different things, right, you don't have to build your monument or anything. I guess my little bit, and my reward is not a placard. That's why I gave Kristen that thing they gave me at triple-A. It was about the JANM award that these architects... I'm listed on there, but I didn't, I was trying to make a statement, but I left it there because I didn't want it anymore. I don't know how you educate people, you do the best you can.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.