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Kobo-Daishi
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www.yahoo.com]
a link to a December 17, 2020 NBC News article posted to the Yahoo News web site titled "There are 3 Japantowns left in America. But they could be on the verge of vanishing.".
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from article
Long before Snapchat and Instagram revolutionized social media with augmented reality face filters, Ryan Kimura opened a photo sticker studio in San Francisco's Japantown, the oldest Japanese enclave in the United States. PikaPika, a staple in the Japan Center since 2006, has become famous for its purikura booths, which let users digitally decorate their images and print them instantaneously onto stickable selfie strips.
Like many brick-and-mortar businesses, however, it hasn't been able to welcome any customers since the first citywide lockdown in March. Kimura said he wanted to stay open for the young adults who frequent the space, but a second lockdown this month and a lack of support from his landlord persuaded him to cut his losses and permanently close at the end of year.
"I don't know how they expect us to pay rent when we're not generating any revenue," Kimura told NBC Asian America.
In the U.S.'s three remaining officially designated Japantowns — in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Jose, California — small businesses like PikaPika have struggled to stay afloat, jeopardizing the survival of the enclaves that have been informal safety nets for generations of low-income Japanese immigrants. While merchants across the country face difficult decisions about whether to stay open, the pandemic is intensifying long-standing pressures in Japantowns that could lead to the collapse of the already declining historic neighborhoods.
'It seems like every month at least one business closes down'
Among the main stressors are rising real estate values and corporate ownership of commercial spaces.
While Chinatowns and Japantowns offer essential resources like affordable housing, senior centers and houses of worship, property ownership in Chinese strongholds tends to be divided among private developers, family associations and individual landowners. In Japantowns, by contrast, corporations hold far greater control. Two private landlords, Kinokuniya Bookstores of America and 3D Investments, own the three malls that make up San Francisco's Japan Center, where a vast majority of family-owned restaurants and retailers are located, including PikaPika.
Because developers tend to prioritize protecting the bottom line over preserving historic ethnic communities, the sole corporate ownership system puts mom-and-pop shops in a vulnerable position, said Diane Matsuda, a staff lawyer with Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, a nonprofit that helps provide pro bono legal assistance to about 90 percent of Japan Center's businesses.
I'm conflicted on this.
I consider Chinatowns to be ghettos. That the people living there should strive to work as hard as possible to earn enough to get out of as soon as possible.
So their children can learn a profession. Become an engineer, lawyer, dentist or doctor. But just to move out.
That they are dead ends. Dooming those who stay to a life of poverty.
But still...
Kobo.