Bill Watanabe
Bill Watanabe is the founding Executive Director of the Little Tokyo Service Center. Since 1980 he has guided its growth, in conjunction with the Board of Directors, from a one-person staff to a multi-faceted social services and community development program with 150 paid staff, many of whom are bilingual in any of eight Asian Pacific languages and Spanish.
Bill received his Masters in Social Welfare from UCLA in 1972. He has been married for 36 years, and has one daughter, and lives near downtown Los Angeles, only a short drive to his ethnic neighborhood of Little Tokyo.
Updated Janurary 2015
Stories from This Author
Sugihara – An Honest to Goodness Japanese Hero
Jan. 26, 2024 • Bill Watanabe
I think we apply the word “hero” all too loosely, to many who may not deserve such a label. But have you ever heard of Chiune Sugihara? Perhaps not because his is not a well-known name, but I am a huge fan of Chiune Sugihara – and he is a true Japanese hero. Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who, during World War II, defied the direct orders of his government and chose to issue thousands of hand-written transit visas to …
Old Men Will Dream Dreams
April 6, 2022 • Bill Watanabe
The Terasaki Budokan had its grand opening celebration on March 19, 2022, which was attended by a couple of thousand happy folks and it was a grand time! I hope you don’t mind if I beat my chest a little bit longer about this momentous event and ruminate about the significance of this accomplishment. The Bible has a passage that says “your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams.” When I was a relatively young …
The Young Doctor
May 14, 2021 • Bill Watanabe
Young Dr. Kitano was feeling very happy. He had recently graduated from medical school - and his new patient Masako was the young daughter of a prominent family in the village and considered by everyone as the most beautiful young maiden in the entire region of northern Japan. She quickly got well, and they fell in love. Because she was still young, he agreed to wait for 4 years until she became of age for marriage. They were married in …
Little Tokyo Clayworks
March 23, 2018 • Jessica Man , Bill Watanabe , Gary Okura
“Fire” “Earth” “Spirit” ... basic elements of ceramics. Simple strong strokes combine fire and clay to create a spirit in art. This spirit has led to the formation of the California Japanese Ceramics Arts Guild and Little Tokyo Clayworks. Introduction The creative efforts of the Japanese American Ceramics Guild, the Little Tokyo Clayworks, along with the many contributing ceramic artists including Joanne and Yukio Onaga has been published so anyone interested in Little Tokyo and it’s cultural impact can see …
Japanese Hospital: Keeping the Community Healthy
April 7, 2017 • Michael Okamura , Bill Watanabe , Kristen Hayashi
Beginning in the late 19th century, boosters of Los Angeles touted the region’s sunshine and mild climate as a place for health-seekers. Yet residents of ethnic enclaves in Los Angeles were often denied access to health care at mainstream hospitals. Japanese and other recent immigrant groups depended on itinerant midwives for assistance with childbirth and traveling physicians to make house calls to treat serious illnesses. By the 1910s, the increase in birth rate that resulted from the arrival of scores …
Melodee, Malcolm, and Me
March 31, 2015 • Bill Watanabe
I spent my childhood years during the 1950s in the San Fernando Valley. My parents, like a number of other Nikkei families, were flower growers and we had a farm on which we grew carnations, chrysanthemums, anemones, asters, and other flowers. During the summers, I spent many hours working under the hot Valley sun, and I always became dark and tanned, just like my parents, my brothers, and all the hired help we had on the farm. The elementary schools …
Saturday School
Feb. 9, 2015 • Bill Watanabe
I thought it was very unfair of my parents to make me go to Saturday School to learn Japanese. All the other kids I knew from public school got to take the whole weekend off, but not me—I had to go to Saturday School from 9 in the morning ‘til 3 in the afternoon to learn what seemed to be the most boring subject in the entire world—Japanese. My Issei parents thought it was important that their American-born children study …
The Screen Door
Jan. 23, 2015 • Bill Watanabe
Summers in the San Fernando Valley can be stifling hot, and during the 1950s when I was growing up, a screen door was a nice thing to have. There were no such things as air conditioners (at least, not in my neighborhood), and we didn’t even have a water air cooler to help cool the summer temperatures. A screen door allowed the occasional breeze to enter the house but would keep out the irritating flies and other insects that would …
