For nearly a century, Japanese immigrants lived in the East Hollywood boarding house.
At the height of the house, about thirty men went out every day to work as gardeners or workers, returning for communal meals that they could only converse in their mother tongue.
Now there are seven left, renting spartan rooms furnished with a bachelor bed and a small table while worrying about their long life with a new owner in a gentrified neighborhood, with Sqirl and other hipster restaurants just a few blocks away.
This month, the Los Angeles City Council designated the space at 564 N. Virgil Ave. as a historical and cultural monument, which would rule out, but eliminate, the demolition option.
The owner is in the process of renovating the house, so he is allowed the new name. He says he gave rooms to tenants at a nearby construction for the $400 to $500 a month they pay.
But men, mostly older singles without young children, are still worried about being forced to move. They would struggle to find the deal they now have as long-term tenants with rent control.
“I have nowhere to go,” said Sho Yoneha, 83, a dishwasher and retired gardener who has lived at the site for three decades, having lunch with his roommates last year. every day with the truth that I have nothing. “
The two-story wink space with a cream-colored peeling paint has a recessed porch and oblong façade that look out of place in an old west.
With 23 rooms and a handful of tenants, much of it is empty. It’s the last Japanese boarding house still in operation in the city, according to Los Angeles member Lindsay Mulcahy. Tenants Union and former representative of Hollywood Heritage.
Four former guest houses still exist, but they are no longer occupied by Japanese immigrants, said Mulcahy, who advocates for tenants.
Developer Matt Mehdizadeh bought the pension Virgil Avenue in February 2021. The space was heralded as “an excellent opportunity for progress for investors looking to capture the best rents in a high-demand area. “
Mehdizadeh said he submitted up to $20,000 to whoever agreed to move.
“I introduced them to what they were looking for,” he said in a recent interview. “What the tenants were looking for made sense. “
Mehdizadeh got rid of most of the historic windows as part of a renovation that will allow you to rent a room for around $800 a month. This will create more affordable housing in a gentrification community, he said.
He described as generous his offer to provide rooms to long-term tenants in a renovated construction next door, for the rent they are now paying.
“No landlord in Los Angeles history has come forward to move tenants . . . to a new house with the logo without increasing its rent, so who is the smart one here, who is the bad guy, I don’t know,” he said.
But tenants are skeptical about the offer.
“Matt never explains what the main goal is,” said Hidetoshi Shibao, 77, who came to California in the early 1970s and worked as a gardener and tour bus driver. “What is your goal for this place?”
James Niimi, who has lived in space since the early 1980s, finds that it is difficult to accept as true with Mehdizadeh.
Born in Hawaii, Niimi is one of the tenants who speaks fluent English.
He came to the continent in 1957 after graduating from high school, making a living doing jobs: promoting magazine subscriptions, spamming, cutting meat.
When Niimi first moved, she paid $90 a month. Now, as the oldest tenant, his rent is around $400.
“It’s a living position for seniors,” said Niimi, 83, who is retired. Mehdizadeh “offered cash to many people. I said, ‘You have to tell my lawyer. ‘ . . . I don’t need to do it. “
The men didn’t make it to California by much. All those decades later, they still don’t have much. Many are retired and live off Social Security.
Hideo Suetake came to the United States at age 26, intending to study for a year and return home. He ended up staying, pedaling in jobs and adding cooking in a sushi and tempura bar.
He eventually lost contact with his circle of relatives in Japan. Now 70, she works as a receptionist at a hotel in Little Tokyo.
His room on the first floor has everything he owns: drawers full of clothes, a fan, cups and bowls stacked on a small desk.
In the 1910s and 1920s, East Hollywood was in the middle of Japanese life.
Sukesaka and Tsuya Ozawa owned a farm and lived in Virgil. In 1924 they had the pension next to their house.
The Ozawa, basically daughters-in-law Shizuka and Doris, cooked 3 meals a day for the whole house. They held networked festivals and made tenants, many of whom didn’t have a family circle in the United States, feel at home, he said. Susan Ozawa, the great-granddaughter of Sukesaka and Tsuya.
The pension served as an employment agency, as discrimination prevented many Japanese from finding employment on their own.
During World War II, the Ozawa were among more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent forced into incarceration camps through the U. S. government. USA
After two years at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, the Ozawa returned to Virgil Avenue. They had entrusted their property to a Presbyterian minister, who paid the taxes. Unlike many Japanese Americans, they may simply rebuild their old lives.
In the years after the war, the pension was a place of reunification and an anchor for the community.
It’s a “testament to survival,” to “working hard and taking care of each other,” Susan Ozawa said.
The Ozawa were actively involved in the japanese community at large, with Sukesaka Ozawa investing in what is now the Japanese Cultural Institute of Hollywood and supporting the Hollywood Judo Dojo program.
After the family circle sold the building in 1980, Japanese men continued to live there.
For a time, the subsequent owners were Japanese-Americans. A member of Ozawa’s circle of relatives taught them how to cook Japanese dishes, Mulcahy said.
Now, the days when the owner put hot food on the table are long gone.
Most Japanese have long since left East Hollywood. Even in Little Tokyo, Gardena and Sawtelle, there are fewer immigrants whose first language is Japanese.
Every Saturday, Shibao travels to the Islamic Center of Southern California to pick up fresh produce, fish, meat, and canned goods.
Roommates eat together. They show some separate bathrooms, as well as a kitchen with steel shelves filled with soy sauce, cane sugar, canned pork, noodle soup with poultry, and copies of the Japan Times.
This winter, tenants found themselves warming up. They stayed warm with blankets and jackets brought across Los Angeles. Last month, the stove broke down and members of the network brought them food.
Mehdizadeh said he repaired the heater shortly after being informed of the challenge and planned to upgrade the stove.
Meanwhile, with network organizations discovering pro bono lawyers and hosting storytelling events to raise public awareness, the application for historical-cultural designation made its way into city agencies.
The approval of the designation by the city council on June 10 allows the city government to delay demolition for up to a year while steps are taken to maintain the building, which amounts to a transitional pardon.
Despite the grueling and precarious lives they have led, men say this country has them well.
“Some other people say bad things about America, but it’s actually a smart country,” said Yoneha, who came to the U. S. from Okinawa on a whim 50 years ago. “When it comes to network services, America is not . 1”.
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Chris Kuo, 2021 Metro intern for the Los Angeles Times. He is originally from Massachusetts and graduated from Duke University, where he studies English, political science and journalism. He is editor of the Chronicle and has written for 9th Street Journal. and INDY Week.
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Teresa Watanabe covers education for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the Times in 1989, she has covered immigration, ethnic communities, religion, Pacific affairs and has been a Tokyo correspondent and bureau chief. He also covered Asia, national affairs and status for the San Jose Mercury News and wrote editorials for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Originally from Seattle, she graduated from USC with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and East Asian languages and cultures.
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Jeong Park is an Asian-American community journalist for the Los Angeles Times. Previously, he was an economic mobility reporter for the Sacramento Bee, covering how California’s policies on workers’ lives. He also covered towns and communities for the Orange County Register. Park sees either Seoul, where he was born, and Southern California, where he grew up, as his home. He graduated from UCLA. It welcomes recommendations for smart walks, food and K-Pop songs.
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