Can Portland's Former J-Town See a Revival?
The city's ethnic enclave disappeared with the WWII evacuation. Uwajimaya, a JA-owned supermarket, is contemplating a move into the old neighborhood.
George Katagiri remembers a place in his hometown of Portland, Oregon that no longer exists. At 81, the Nisei still walks the same streets he did as a teenager on his way to Japantown for judo class or to visit his friends.
The memories are pristine, but the sights, sounds and ethnic identity of his old neighborhood have changed. World War II hastened Katagiri's coming-of-age when his family was forced from their home to the Portland Assembly Center and Tule Lake. When they returned after the war, Japantown was gone.
Today, the former J-Town is like a ghost city inside Portland's Old Town/Chinatown District - the only nod to its existence are some of its original buildings and bronze plaques detailing the area's history. But its presence from the turn of the century to 1941 has left imprints in its former residents and revelers.
"The echoes of prewar Japantown will always be there for me anyhow," said Katagiri, his words warm with nostalgia.
Disappearance is a common theme in most of today's J-Towns - the last three in California continue to fend off shrinking borders and loss of ownership. But in Portland what is gone may soon return with the possible arrival of Uwajimaya, an Asian food and gift market.
"It would be the first JA business in the area since the 1950s," said June Schumann, executive director of the Oregon Nikkei Center. "It's significant because it would reestablish the commercial history of the neighborhood."
A Tentative Possibility
The Seattle-based Uwajimaya has been a source for Japanese food and goods in the Pacific Northwest since 1928 when Fujimatsu Moriguchi started hawking homemade fishcakes from the back of his truck. From this humble beginning, the business has grown into a large supermarket chain with three locations in Seattle, Bellevue and Beaverton.
Now Uwajimaya and developers are eyeing a parking lot - free of any historic building or current tenants - at Northwest Couch Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues in Portland's former J-Town as the site for a possible new supermarket space complete with fixed-income housing and underground parking.
Uwajimaya is in the very early stages of this endeavor, said CEO Tomio Moriguchi, who has been meeting with city officials, developers and community members to determine the feasibility and even desirability of the project. A quick analysis of the area revealed that it might not be a fit with Uwajimaya's core clientele.
"We have other opportunities," said Moriguchi, adding that the supermarket's presence in Old Town/Chinatown would depend on the city's commitment to redevelop the area.
For many years the neighborhood, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988, has been on a decline.
"The only grocery stores were the corner stores that sold chips, cookies and cheap wine," said Schumann.
If the Uwajimaya project moves forward, it would mark another city-backed effort to revitalize Old Town/Chinatown, said Peter Englander of the Portland Development Commission (PDC).
The PDC's budget currently earmarks $10 million in tax increment funding for the next five years from the downtown waterfront urban renewal area to help finance the Uwajimaya project. City officials say once details of the project are set, approval is needed from the PDC board and the Portland City Council.
"I am so proud of Chinatown," said Stephen Ying, president of the Chinese American Citizen Alliance. He doesn't want the area to become a dumping ground for the homeless and the mentally ill, a problem that was prevalent in other urban areas like Downtown Los Angeles.
Since his retirement, Ying, 52, goes to Old Town/Chinatown almost every day.
"It's important to keep the history and culture of Chinatown. We want Chinatown to keep its identity," he said. But a big name like Uwajimaya could revitalize Chinatown - and usher in an old Asian identity with a nod to history.
After all it began as Japantown, said Ying.
Old Nihonmachi
It was a neighborhood where many immigrant groups got their start.
Before WWII when it was Japantown, Issei men who worked in the sawmills and railroad construction sites during the week would come to J-Town on the weekends to take baths, get clean clothes from the local laundries and visit the barbers, said Schumann.
The small Nihomachi, which consisted of just five to six blocks near the waterfront, was also an urban hub for JAs to find staples like shoyu, miso and rice.
But when the bombing of Pearl Harbor thrust the U.S. into war, Portland city leaders quickly rescinded business licenses for JA-owned businesses and shut down J-Town even before President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued his removal orders for all JAs on the West Coast, said Schumann.
Prominent JA businesses like Teikoku, a retail store established in 1905 by the Matsushima family, were eventually forced to sell all its goods and close its doors. Growing up in pre-war J-Town, young Hiroshi Matsushima helped his parents run the shop by packing umeboshi into jars.
"That was my job," said the Nisei, who was taken to the Minidoka Internment Camp with his mother and siblings. His father had been picked up earlier by the FBI and taken to a separate camp. By the time the Matsushima family was reunited over a year later in Crystal City, Texas, young Hiroshi barely recognized his own father.
Thousands of Portland's JA residents experienced the same forced dislocation, and most never returned after the war - leaving the old J-Town to fade away. It was by chance in 1950 that Katagiri, an MIS veteran who earned his teaching credentials at the University of Minnesota, returned to his hometown. He was hired to teach at Portland's Abernethy, the same elementary school he attended growing up.
When Katagiri returned, J-Town had already become Chinatown.
"It was nostalgic but there was nothing to draw me back there," he said.
The Matsushima family also returned to the Portland area after the war to set up shop again with $500 borrowed from friends. The government barred the name Teikoku calling it "imperial," so they settled on Anzen or "safe."
In 1968, the family moved across the river to its current location at 736 NE ML King Boulevard. The 103-year-old business is now being run by Hiroshi, who is wary of Uwajimaya's possible move across the river. Anzen was once the only place to get Japanese food and goods, but Uwajimaya's move to Beaverton 10 years ago cut into Anzen's business.
"It hurt quite a bit," said Hiroshi.
Besides shopping, Anzen's loyal customers often come in to ask Hiroshi for referrals for credible dentists or skilled mechanics. "They tell me don't close up," he said between sighs. "We'll see."
Multicultural District
Today, a dozen or more buildings with JA roots stand next to buildings steeped in Chinese American history, said Schumann. "Some of us still think of this area as a multiethnic historical district."
The Nikkei Legacy Center is currently located inside the old Merchant Hotel, a J-Town mainstay, that's located near the proposed site of the Uwajimaya project.
Katagiri, a Portland JACL member, and other community members welcome the pan-Asian supermarket, calling it a good fit for the multiethnic historical district.
Moriguchi said the possibility of bringing back a JA-owned business to the old Nihonmachi would be an opportunity to give his newly born grandson a slice of history.
"As we learn more about the history of Portland's Old Town/Chinatown/Japantown, we are struck by the similarities with Seattle's International District," said Alan Kurimura, Uwajimaya vice president. "It is unique to the Pacific Northwest to have Chinatowns, Japantowns and Manilatowns side by side. We hope an Uwajimaya in Portland will bring together all Asians and non-Asians."
Katagiri does not have to go far to remember a place that used to bring JAs together. The Japanese American Historical Plaza at Tom McCall Waterfront Park commemorates the city's history with a series of stones etched with poems in English and Japanese.
"Just over there," one says, "was our old community. Echoes! Echoes! Echoes!"
"Every time I read that, all I have to do is look over my shoulder," said Katagiri. "I still hear the sounds and think once upon a time there was a Japantown."
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