グウェン・ムラナカ

Auntie Nancy would be proud.

Little Tokyo has been through much in 2020, but last Saturday was a rare moment of celebration and joy in this most difficult year. Under the “Home Is Little Tokyo” Mural Matt Consalvi got down on one knee and asked his girlfriend, Marissa Hernandez, to be his wife.

“I have no words. I’m blown away,” Marissa said, beaming, a diamond ring on her finger.

Family and friends, all wearing masks, were there to surprise the happy couple. In a special way, Nancy Kikuchi, who passed away in 2014 at 52, was there as well ...

Little Tokyo and yearning for meaning and hope in the power of place.

A bird taking flight.

Little Tokyo is a small neighborhood of artists and activists, of commerce and spirituality, of parades and protests, densely layered by its long history and its proximity to the seats of power.

And so, in early June, Nihonmachi, wounded by a week of turbulence and tumult that has shaken an entire nation, took to the task of rebuilding and reforming a community. Summoning up, once again, those reserves of resiliency that have served the Japanese American community for so many generations.

Individuals, each ...

This is how I go cover a story now. I put on a cloth mask and wash my hands, grab my recorder and put an LAPD press badge around my neck. A while back, photographer Mario Gershom Reyes and I covered Hideki Obayashi of Azuma in Gardena as he fights to keep the restaurant going.

Even with masks on, you can see the strain, exhaustion and worry in his eyes. His wife Genie Nakano stopped by with a tin box of cookies. Our hands are all worn, chapped and dry from constant washing. Places where we meet are now empty ...

"I don’t like the word H-A-T-E. I don’t use it,” says Norman Mineta.

Even if it’s a matter of a dislike for carrots, the former transportation secretary says “hate” isn’t a part of his vocabulary, and that informs who he is and the issues he has championed.

“I’ve always been a half-full kind of person, more optimistic about things and how they happen, but you know I was only 10 years old at the time of the evacuation, so it wasn’t real hard impact on me. But I saw the impact on people like ...

There are some annoyances to spending most days in Little Tokyo: the traffic, the constant construction, the overflow of hipsters and homeless. But one reason I’m grateful to work here in J-Town is definitely the food.

Most days, since we’re busy on deadline, we eat in our office, but once a week we treat ourselves to a lunch at a local restaurant. There are so many great choices. Old favorites like Suehiro, TOT and Kouraku or newer places like Chinchikurin Okonomiyaki or Jist (the former Tokyo Café) — there’s a lot to choose from.

If you want Hawaiian ...