Shawn Iwaoka of San Fernando JACL’s Katarou Histories Project gave a talk entitled “Japanese American Teen Life After Internment: Gang and Club Culture” on Sept. 13 at a meeting of the Greater Los Angeles JACL at Merit Park Recreation Hall in Gardena. He discussed the experiences of Nisei who returned to Southern California from the camps but had nowhere to live. Temporary housing included trailer parks in Burbank and Sun Valley that housed some 5,000 Japanese Americans from 1945 to 1956. Iwaoka showed a 2013 video that he helped produce, “A Return Home,” which featured Roy Tanabe, Tommy Uyeda and Ken Furutani, all members of a club called the Larks (originally the Skylarks). To see the video, click here. Pictured from right: Iwaoka, Nancy Takayama, Kanji Sahara, Louise Sakamoto, Laurel Mayeda, Janet Okubo, Miyako Kadogawa. (Photo by J.K. YAMAMOTO/Rafu Shimpo)
Teen Life
