The rich history of Japanese culture in Boyle Heights was on display along First Street this weekend at the third annual Nikkei Celebration.
The event Saturday drew community members as well as people from across Los Angeles County who came to enjoy the Japanese music, traditional dance, and Taiko drums.
The festivities began with a parade that kicked off on Saratoga Street in front of Tenrikyo Church and made its way down to Otomisan restaurant, both cultural landmarks with ties to the Japanese history of the neighborhood.
Otomisan, the oldest continuously operating Japanese restaurant in Boyle Heights, sold bento boxes with chicken teriyaki and California rolls, while event hosts came around with free Japanese pastries and sweet mochi treats.
Sunny Seki from San Gabriel attended the festival for the first time. He remembered how different the landscape looked when the Japanese community called Boyle Heights home.
“I used to visit my friend in this area,” Seki said, taking in his surroundings. “There was a hospital there, a Japanese school there, a temple there, but those people started moving out from here.”
The author and illustrator, who is also a father of nine, explained how he began creating children’s books as a way to teach his kids about Japanese folktales and cultural icons. At the festival, Seki set up a booth with stacks of his colorful children’s books laid perfectly among other Japanese trinkets for sale.
Following the parade, guests were treated to a variety of performances, including the beating sounds of drums by Hikari Taiko, songs from Boyle Heights Neighborhood Music School to classical Japanese dances. Through song and dance, performers paid tribute to the Nikkei, the term referring to Japanese emigrants and their descendants.
Decades before Boyle Heights became a Latino enclave, the community was home to a melting pot of ethnic and religious groups, including Japanese. Historical landmarks like the Japanese Hospital on Fickett Street and Nichiren Shu Beikoku Betsuin Buddhist Temple on Fourth Street are symbols of the once-thriving Japanese community.
For Mike Okamura, the president of the Little Tokyo Historical Society, Boyle Heights is a sentimental place.
“I’m very proud of my family’s history in Boyle Heights, although I was not born or lived here, my late father was born in Boyle Heights. He lived on Third and Evergreen and went to First Street School and then he went to Hollenbeck Junior High School for a short time before the family moved over to Sawtelle,” said Okamura.
Okamura shared that he’s a frequent visitor in the community, especially through his long relationship with the Boyle Heights Community Partners, the nonprofit who organized the event.
“We’re just so happy that we all work together for a common benefit to just educate and promote the wonderful history that makes up Boyle Heights,” Okamura said.
Now, with celebrations like this one, locals like Yolanda Cruz get to experience the rich history of the past and present.
“The festival is representative for them, and for us, it’s a learning opportunity. Us as Mexicans, as Latinos, we have other customs and they also have theirs,” Cruz said in Spanish while watching the Japanese dancers perform. “It’s very beautiful.”
