The Man Who Helped Save Little Tokyo
By MARTHA NAKAGAWA
RAFU CONTRIBUTOR
Saturday, May 31, 2008

As city planner, Reuben Lovret proved an invaluable ally to Japanese Americans.

A view of First and San Pedro streets taken in the late 1940s. As city planner during the 1960s, Lovret recognized that some in City Hall wanted Little Tokyo to disappear and he sought ways to organize the community against civic center expansion into the area.

Reuben Lovret

Little Tokyo’s current existence owes a great deal to Reuben Lovret, former Los Angeles City Planner who passed away recently.

After World War II, when Japa­nese Americans, newly released from incarceration camps, were trying to rebuild their lives, the federal govern­ment passed the Housing Acts of 1949 and 1954, which were urban renewal programs that hugely impacted Japan­towns.

Under these acts, cities received fed­eral funds to purchase land perceived to be “blighted.” In 1952, the City of Los Angeles targeted an entire block of Little Tokyo to build a new police facility. Kicked off that block were businesses such as The Rafu Shimpo.

Urban renewal programs took a heavy toll on other Nik­kei communities as well. More than 15 blocks of Sacramento’s Japantown and half the core of San Francisco’s Japantown were razed under eminent domain rulings.

Although the displaced businesses were compen­sated, Sacramento lost its Japantown and San Francisco’s Japantown continues to dwindle.

During the 1960s, Los Angeles city threatened to take yet another block of Little Tokyo. It was at this juncture in 1963 that Rev. Howard Toriumi met Lovret.

Toriumi wanted an expansion permit to accommodate Union Church’s grow­ing congregation but Lovret explained that on paper, the entire block that Union Church (currently Union Center for the Arts) sat on was already a part of the civ­ic center expansion plan. He suggested that Toriumi organize a meeting.

James Yoshinaga, a Kibei Nisei assis­tant city planner who worked for Lovret, in recalling the situation said, “Reuben convinced Reverend Toriumi and the others to form an entity that can talk to the city, rather than on an individual basis. Reuben was a visionary. He was very concerned about the future.”

Lovret empa­thized with Japanese Americans because he was familiar with racism. Although Lovret could pass for a Caucasian, he was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1917, to a Norwegian father and a mother of Spanish ancestry. He spent his childhood in what Lovret described as Jim Crow El Paso, Texas.

Growing up, Lovret never hid his mixed heritage. “There were many with similar back­ground as my own,” recalled Lovret. “They changed their names and pretended that they had some other background. I didn’t want to do that but I paid a price for calling a spade a spade and telling my background the way it was.

“It would have been fairly easy to escape dis­crimination by making a few fictitious changes in my background, but I felt that if I did that, then things would never change. I felt a sense of duty to do what I could to fight discrimination. I had some very pain­ful experiences but I was rewarded by a feeling of self-respect. I felt that discrimination was not my own fault or anything that I had done so it was not my problem. Discrimination was the other person’s problem — the discriminator’s problem.”

In 1950, Lovret moved to California. He attended the First Unitarian Church on Eighth Street, where he met his future wife, Dorothy Mehus, and befriended Mari and Bill Hata.

Through the Hatas, Lovret learned about the Nikkei incarceration during World War II. He recalled seeing a few Nikkei still living in the church base­ment because they could not find hous­ing after coming out of camp.

Lovret also became aware that some in City Hall wanted Little Tokyo to disappear.

“At that time, there was a city ad­ministrative officer who was really prejudiced against the Japanese,” said Lovret. “He seemed to derive pleasure out of condemning any properties in the Little Tokyo area that could be used for civic center expansion.”

To counteract this, Lovret shared the city’s expansion plans whenever someone from Little Tokyo came to the City Planning Department. It was Lovret’s indirect way of mobilizing the community.

“I’d been suggesting to them that it was very difficult to work with the city as an individual but if they could organize as a community, there was no limit to what could be done,” recalled Lovret.

“Invariably, each one said, ‘Well, I’m too busy with my business. I don’t have time to organize the community.’ The first person who showed any inter­est in doing that was Reverend Howard Toriumi.”

Toriumi organized a noon meeting on May 20, 1963, at the Daruma Cafe, 123 South San Pedro Street. Attending that first meeting were: Frank Hirata, Ishitani, Bruce Kaji, Kono, Lovret, Kiyo Maruyama, Tsujiro Nakamura, Toriumi and Yoshinaga.

Subsequent meetings were held during lunch or after work to protect Lovret’s job.

“I became aware that my boss, the director of the department, seemed to know nothing about the Japanese, and being so close to the war, he could see nothing but trouble if I tried to get involved with anything that he didn’t know about so he made it very clear that he did not want me to have any contacts with what he called the down­town people,” said Lovret. “So I made it a point that whenever I met with any Japanese people, that it was either during the lunch hour or after work so it was on my own time so he could not fire me for doing something on my own time.”

Yoshinaga praised Lovret for sticking his neck out. “I don’t think those in the city were sympathetic to what we were trying to do,” said Yoshinaga. “Reuben had to fight hard for that, and as the head of the unit, he gave me free rein to go to the meetings. He was very supportive. He was very dedicated to Little Tokyo, and he’s not given the appreciation he deserves.”

In turn, Lovret praised Yoshinaga, saying, “One of the things that was a tremendous assistance to me was that I had an assistant named Jim Yoshinaga, who spoke perfect Japanese. He was bilingual and bicultural.

When we met at the Daruma restau­rant, Reverend Toriumi invited some of the older people, who felt much more comfortable speaking Japanese than English so Jim Yoshinaga was a tremendous help doing the translating so I could understand what they were saying and they could understand what I was saying.”

Lovret advised the group to come up with their own general land use plan as an alternative to the city’s civic center expansion plan.

The Little Tokyo Redevelopment Association (LTRA) formed from these meetings, and Bruce Kaji headed LTRA during its six-year existence.

Lovret suggested that LTRA publish a booklet that included a Little Tokyo population survey, history and general land use plan. The LTRA board supported this proposal on Aug. 5, 1963.

On Dec. 20, 1963, the City Planning Commission unanimously approved
LTRA’s plan in principle, and on Jan. 28, 1964, the Los Angeles City Council’s Planning Committee did the same.

In 1965, Lovret curtailed his LTRA activities due to a reassignment.

“It was after the Watts riot that I was re-assigned,” said Lovret. “The (planning) department opened a branch office in Watts. The department couldn’t find anybody else to manage that office, so I said I didn’t mind being there.”

By 1968, Kaji realized the all-volunteer LTRA could not accomplish its goals without assistance. Kaji met with Community Redevelopment Authority Director Richard Mitchell. Separately, CRA City Planner Yukio Kawaratani had also suggested pursuing CRA funding.

Kawaratani converted LTRA’s plan into a CRA plan, and Kango Kunitsugu was appointed CRA’s first Little Tokyo project director.

With the CRA involved, LTRA voted to dissolve in 1969. To LTRA’s credit, they staved off another city takeover and prevented a freeway from running through the district.

“The building where the Caltrans headquarters is currently located (across from the Kyoto Grand Hotel, formerly New Otani) is on land that three railroads donated for the purpose of extending the freeway,” said Lovret.

The LTRA was replaced by the Little Tokyo Community Development Advisory Committee, which was replaced by the Little Tokyo Community Council (LTCC). Today, Lovret’s contribution is still visible on the LTCC.

“When we were getting ready to publish that (LTRA) book, I was trying to find a symbol that I thought would be appropriate for it,” said Lovret. “I happen to be at a book stall, next to what used to be Bullock’s downtown.

There, I found a book about Japan. On the back of it was an image with three symbols that seemed to be revolving around each other. It was described as the movement of the elements in the process of becoming.

“When we were preparing the book, I suggested they use that as a theme, both at the back of the book and the interior of the back cover. They thought it was appropriate for the community, so it was used.”

That symbol is still used on LTCC letterheads more than 40 years later.
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This piece was made possible with the help of Bruce Kaji, Tom Kamei,
Yukio Kawaratani, Kats Kunitsugu, Dorothy Mehus, Tetsujiro Nakamura and James Yoshinaga.