The first Japanese immigrants arrived in San Francisco in 1869: predominantly young men looking for new opportunities. In 1870 the first Japanese Consulate in the US was established in San Francisco and by 1890 there were 1,114 Japanese residents. Two Japantowns were established: one on the boarder of Chinatown^[1] and the other along Jessie and Stevenson in SoMa. But the 1906 Earthquake and Fires^[2] burned both neighborhoods to the ground and a new Japantown was established in the Western Addition. This new Japantown flourished and is said to have resembled the Ginza District in Tokyo. Despite being classified as “aliens ineligible for citizenship”, by 1909 the number of Japanese immigrants blossomed to 79,000. The majority of businesses set up in Japantown catered to the Japanese community, in part because there were many City services (barbers, for example) who refused to serve people of Asian descent.

My great-grandfather, William CTS Filmer^[3], was the captain of a Japanese passanger ship that traveled between San Francisco, Honolulu, Hong Kong and Tokyo. When he became widowed he hired a local Japanese man, Jack Ochi, as a house cleaner. My mother Anne remembers him coming to the house twice a week. He would bring her trinkets, and bedazzle her with stories about the beauty of Mount Fuji.

Everything changed with the December 7, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor^[4]. In February 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, ordering everyone of Japanese descent, including US citizens, to sell their belongings and give up their homes. While Roosevelt was the first to proclaim that he believed most people of Japanese ancestry in the US did not pose a threat to the war effort, he also believed that it would only take a few to betray the country. Between April 7^th – May 20^th, every San Franciscan of Japanese descent was transported to the Tanforan Horse Track in San Mateo. Families were housed in whitewashed horse stalls until barrack-style encampments could be constructed in the nation’s deserts. Among those “evacuated” was Jack Ochi, whose wife and daughter were living in Japan.

For two years Japantown lay vacant, and African Americans migrating to the City to work at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard^[5] slowly began to take over large swaths of the neighborhood. On January 2, 1945, when Japanese American ”evacuees” from the West Coast could return to their homes, many chose not to return to Japantown and moved instead to the Richmond District or out of the City altogether. Jack Ochi came to visit my great-grandfather – to say goodbye. Internment had been traumatizing and, no longer trusting the American government, he returned to Japan. Those that chose to return to Japantown set about restoring the enclave to what it now is today, though the neighborhood that had once encompassed over twenty blocks shrunk down to the six between Bush, Fillmore, Laguna and Geary. The community was scaled back even further when, in the late 1950s, Geary Boulevard was widened to create a main thoroughfare across the City.

In 1968 San Francisco’s sister-city Osaka presented San Francisco with Yoshiro Taniguchi’s San Francisco Peace Pagoda, a five-tiered concrete structure meant to inspire peace. It sits in Japantown’s main plaza, accompanied by two non-running fountains designed by San Francisco artist Ruth Asawa^[6].

In 1994 a pair of cherry blossom trees were planted in Japantown to commemorate a visit by Emperor Akihito and his wife. These trees were intentionally hacked and destroyed over the course of three days in January 2021.

In 2006 the Benkyodo Company celebrated 100 years of business. It was the first US manufacturer of the fortune cookie, created by the operator of the Japanese Tea Garden^[7] for the 1894 Midwinter International Exposition^[8]. The fortune cookie is now associated with Chinese cuisine, but this was one of the things taken over by the Chinese during the Japanese Internment. 

Japantown hosts three annual festivals: the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival (which includes a parade) in April^[9], the Nihomachi Street Fair in August^[10], and the Aki Matsuri Festival in October^[11].

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^[1] Chinatown: story coming October 18th

[2] 1906 Earthquake and Fires: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=2849

^[3] William CTS Filmer: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4643

^[4]  World War II: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4222

[5] Hunters Point Naval Shipyard: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4237

[6] Ruth Asawa: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=3628

^[7] Japanese Tea Garden: see story coming September 12^th

[8] 1894 Midwinter International Exposition: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4428

^[9] Visit them at www.sfcherryblossom.org

^[10] Visit them at www.nihomachistreetfair.org

^[11] Visit them at www.sfjapantown.org

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