There is a Japanese American and a Japanese national population in Los Angeles and Greater Los Angeles. Japanese people began arriving in the United States in the late 1800s and have settled in places like Hawaii, Alaska, and California. Los Angeles has become a hub for people of Japanese descent for generations in areas like Little Tokyo and Boyle Heights. As of 2017, Los Angeles has a Japanese and Japanese American population of around 110,000 people.

History

Following the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese immigration to the United States increased drastically to fill the resulting labor void. From 1869 to 1910, Los Angeles became a prime location for Japanese immigrants to settle down. By 1910, Los Angeles had the highest percentage of Japanese and Japanese descendants in the country. Japanese immigrants took on the low-wage jobs that were once held by Chinese Immigrants and settled in cities like San Francisco. Japanese immigrants were once recruited to come to the United States to take on jobs on railroads but quickly turned to agriculture as a means of work in Southern California.

In 1905, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner published an article on the “yellow peril” and related it to Japanese immigrants, as its original creation was against people of Chinese descent. The first group traveled from San Francisco after experiencing anti-Asian sentiment in that city.Wilkman, John and Nancy Wilkman. Los Angeles: A Pictorial Celebration. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2008. , 9781402750366. p. 148. "The first Japanese in Los Angeles came south from San Francisco in the 1890s to escape anti-Asian sentiment. Since that time, Japanese and Japanese Americans have played important roles in the economic and cultural life of the city." The early 1900s saw an increase of racism and xenophobia in California to the point where Asian children were being segregated in public schools in San Francisco. After the 1906 earthquake in Northern California, around 2,000-3,000 Japanese immigrants moved to Los Angeles and created areas like Little Tokyo on East Alameda. As the community continued to grow, Little Tokyo extended to the First Street Corridor in Boyle Heights, in the early 1910s.

Boyle Heights was Los Angeles’s largest residential community of Japanese immigrants and Americans, apart from Little Tokyo. In the early 1910s, Boyle Heights was one of the only communities that did not have restricted housing covenants that discriminated against Japanese and other people of color. Boyle Heights was a bustling interracial community where people of different ethnic backgrounds lived amongst each other. In the 1920s and 1930s, Boyle Heights became the center of significant churches, temples, and schools for the Japanese community, “These include the Tenrikyo Junior Church of America at 2727 E. 1st Street (1937‐39), the Konko Church at 2924 E. 1st Street (1937‐38), and the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple (1926‐27), all designed by Yos Hirose, and the Japanese Baptist Church at 2923 E. 2nd Street (1926; extant but altered) built by the Los Angeles City Baptist Missionary Society in 1926‐29”. A hospital, also designed by Hirose, opened in 1929 to serve the Japanese American community.

Further south, on Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor, a Japanese American fishing community was established, starting around 1906. Prior to World War II, the community had grown to about 3,500 persons of Japanese ancestry.

By 1941, there were about 36,000 ethnic Japanese people in Los Angeles County. Not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized military commanders to exclude "any or all persons" from certain areas in the name of national defense, the Western Defense Command began ordering Japanese Americans living on the West Coast to present themselves for "evacuation" from the newly created military zones. This included many Los Angeles families.

After the war, due to lack of housing in Little Tokyo, many Japanese Americans returning from the camps moved into neighborhoods surrounding the downtown area, into apartments and boarding houses. Notably, Boyle Heights, just east of Little Tokyo, had a large Japanese American population in the 1950s (as it had before the internment) until the arrival of Mexican and Latino immigrants replaced most of them.

In 1981, public hearings were held by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians at the Los Angeles State Building as part of a government investigation into the constitutionality of the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. More than 150 people participated in the Los Angeles hearings.

Geography

Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles is the main historical Japantown of Los Angeles. Sawtelle housed a Japantown that became known as "Little Osaka". Jack Fujimoto, author of Sawtelle: West Los Angeles's Japantown, wrote that the name was given because of the "many colorful eateries and shops." The city put up community signs "Sawtelle Japantown" for this area on April 1, 2015. After court ruling that the segregation covenants in the Crenshaw district were unconstitutional, the area opened up to other races. A large Japanese American settlement ensued, which can still be found along Coliseum Street, east and west of Crenshaw Boulevard.Scott Shibuya Brown, Crenshaw: Littler Tokyo : Although their children are grown and gone, older Japanese-Americans still evince pride, loyalty in their changing community., Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1993 The Holiday Bowl was built by Japanese entrepreneurs as a combination bowling alley, pool hall, bar and coffee shop in 1958 and served Crenshaw's Japanese residents who "had not long before suffered Manzanar's internment camps and a blanket racial ban by the American Bowling Congress".The Best...The Beautiful...and the Bizarre; THE 'SHAW; Holiday Bowl: Strike or Spare? Ed Leibowitz August 8, 1999 page 8 Los Angeles Times Magazine (preview) Blacks started arriving in the 1960s, and by the 1970s were the majority.

As of 2014, Torrance has the second largest concentration of ethnic Japanese people of any U.S. city, after Honolulu. The city has headquarters of Japanese automakers and offices of other Japanese companies. Because of this many Japanese restaurants and other Japanese cultural offerings are in the city, and Willy Blackmore of L.A. Weekly wrote that Torrance was "essentially Japan's 48th prefecture". A Mitsuwa supermarket, Japanese schools, and Japanese banks serve the community.

In the pre-World War II period the South Bay region was one of the few areas that allowed non-U.S. citizens to acquire property, so a Japanese presence came. According to John Kaji, a Torrance resident quoted in Public Radio International who was the son of Toyota's first American-based accountant, the Japanese corporate presence in Torrance, beginning with Toyota, attracted many ethnic Japanese. Toyota moved its operations to its Torrance campus in 1982 because of its proximity to the Port of Long Beach and Los Angeles International Airport, and it was followed by many other Japanese companies.Fujita, Akiko. "Toyota built Torrance into the second-largest home of Japanese Americans. Now, it's leaving" (Archive). The World. Public Radio International. May 16, 2014. Retrieved on May 27, 2015.

As of 1988 Gardena also has a large Japanese-American community.Goodman, Adrianne. "Teacher Helps Japanese-Americans Brush Up on Their Heritage." Los Angeles Times. November 24, 1988. Retrieved on August 30, 2013. Early in Gardena's history, Japanese migrants played a role in the agrarian economy.

Jack Rodman, a managing partner of the accounting firm Kenneth Leventhal & Co., stated in 1989 that the most preferred place for Japanese businesspeople to settle is the Palos Verdes Peninsula, citing the inexpensiveness compared to Bel Air, Brentwood, and Pacific Palisades, proximity to the ocean, and the ranch-style houses because they are "more like a Japanese home--single-story, spread out." He stated that the other preferred places were Pasadena, San Marino, and Arcadia. In addition Rodman said some Japanese businesspeople liked to settle in Hancock Park in the City of Los Angeles; Hancock Park is in proximity to the Consulate-General of Japan in Los Angeles.

Demographics As of 2010, according to the report "A Community Of Contrasts: Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles County" by the nonprofit group Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles (formerly the Asian Pacific American Legal Center), of the Asian ethnic groups, 70% of Japanese Americans were born in the U.S., the highest such rate of the Asian ethnic groups. According to the same report, 19% of Japanese Americans were senior citizens, the highest such rate of the Asian ethnic groups, and from 2000-2010 the population of Japanese Americans increased by 1%, the lowest such rate of the Asian ethnic groups.Trinidad, Elson. "L.A. County is the Capital of Asian America" (Archive). KCET. September 27, 2013. Retrieved on April 3, 2014.

In 1986 Hiroshi Matsuoka, the Japan Business Association of Southern California (JBA, 南カリフォルニア日系企業協会 Minami Kariforunia Nikkei Kigyō Kyōkai) executive director, stated that there were about 3,500 Japanese nationals working for 530 branch companies of Japanese companies in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.Puig, Claudia. "'School of the Rising Sun' : Surroundings Are American but Classes, Traditions Are Strictly Japanese." Los Angeles Times. November 13, 1986. p. 1. Retrieved on March 30, 2014.

Economy

The city of Torrance has headquarters of Japanese automakers and offices of other Japanese companies. The headquarters of American Honda Motor Company, Honda's North American division, is located in Torrance.Rainey, James. "Children of Japanese Executives Flock to Special Classrooms." Los Angeles Times. December 31, 1987. Retrieved on March 6, 2014. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., the U.S. division of Toyota, has its headquarters in Torrance.Hirsch, Jerry. "Giant new Toyota fuel cell powers buildings rather than cars." Los Angeles Times. October 21, 2012. Retrieved on May 11, 2013. Toyota has relocated to Plano, Texas in 2017. Jerry Hirsch and David Undercoffler, Toyota to move jobs and marketing headquarters from Torrance to Texas, Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2014 All Nippon Airways operates its United States headquarters, a customer relations and services office, in Torrance."." All Nippon Airways. Retrieved on December 22, 2008 Also the Japanese supermarket chains Mitsuwa Marketplace"Privacy Policy ." Mitsuwa Marketplace. Retrieved on June 19, 2013. "Customer Relations Mitsuwa Marketplace 1815 W. 213th St. Suite 235 Torrance, CA 90501" and Nijiya Market are headquartered in Torrance.

Japan Airlines moved its U.S. headquarters to El Segundo in 2003.Lauro, Patricia Winters. "THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING -- ADDENDA; Japan Airlines Moves Its Account." The New York Times. March 5, 2003. Retrieved on March 19, 2014. "The airline, part of Japan Airlines Systems, recently moved its United States headquarters to El Segundo from New York." Nissan previously had its North American headquarters in Carson. In the summer of 2006 the Nissan headquarters moved to Tennessee.Vincent, Roger. "Nissan's old campus in South Bay gets 'flipped'." Los Angeles Times. March 3, 2010. Retrieved on March 7, 2014.