In Little Tokyo de los Angeles, protests attract sympathy and frustration
Business owners and locals in Little Tokyo say they are in conflict: frustrated while rubbing graffiti and cleaning after looting, but they also have a deep sense of solidarity with anti-immigration protesters and their cause.
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The last three days since Friday, since the demonstrations began, they have become a little more crazy and a little more wild. “Ice is not welcome here.” Friday and Saturday, we noticed that the majority of the crowd was just north of us, but in the next block. On Monday, they basically arrived directly in front of us. My store is called confectioning and fugetsu-do. It began in 1903. I am the third generation owner. It was started by my grandfather. Being American Japanese, we were well in the camps. My mother and dad married a concentration camp in Wyoming. So we are very sensitive to this cause. The American Japanese have a similar experience with the federal government and are imprisoned for four years, but it is difficult to maintain the support of a group when you are a victim of a small minority of them. Ninety -nine percent of protesters respect the law and are here to protest. Not everyone in the protest group understands that to come to Little Tokyo and disfigure the windows and buildings and walls, it is probably the last place that makes sense to make the subject. Yes, let’s close. I already told the topic to finish. It is like preparing for a hurricane in Florida: addresses through the windows. Well, we do that here in Los Angeles for this.
