South End Life: The Central District Community Center That's Served Generations of Japanese Descendants

You may have driven by the lot on Rainier Avenue South and South Weller Street. There's a chain-link fence. A sign announces the Bright Water Waldorf School (one of the property's tenants). Behind it, there's a short wooden fence draped with ivy. At the north end of a set of cream-colored buildings, a colorful mural says Seattle Japanese Language School. 

The Japanese Culture and Community Center of Washington (JCCCW) lot is home to three buildings built between 1913 and 1929 by Japanese immigrants. Over the generations, these buildings have served Japanese descendants, housing a language school through 1942, then a place for more than 100 Japanese Americans to live as they reestablished their lives after they were forcibly relocated to incarceration camps in the U.S. interior during WWII. 

The JCCCW, which has operated and managed the buildings since 2008, hosts multiple martial arts classes, taiko group practices, meditation sessions, and Japanese language programs, along with a vintage Japanese goods store, a Japanese book library, and the Northwest Nikkei Museum. There's also a series of artworks by Roger Shimomura called "Nikkei Stories" that depicts Japanese American experiences. JCCCW also celebrates two Japanese national holidays; Kodomo no Hi, or Children's Day, in May and Bunka no Hi, or Cultural Day, in November.

Japanese immigrants began arriving in Seattle in the late 1800s as Japan opened for emigration. By the turn of the century, the Japanese community started a Japanese language school in Pioneer Square. As Seattle's Japanese community grew to more than 6,000 by 1910, Japanese immigrants purchased a lot in 1912 and spent the next 13 years constructing buildings for a Japanese school. By the 1930s, there were nearly 1,300 students. 

In 1942, the Japanese Language School abruptly ended classes after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the school principal was arrested. When Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from Seattle to incarceration camps, some people stored items they couldn't take in the school buildings. The rest of the space was used by the U.S. Army Air Corps. 

It was difficult for Japanese Americans to return to their former neighborhoods after they were released from forced incarceration. There were accounts of vandalism to former Japanese American-owned properties, physical violence toward returning individuals, and housing and employment discrimination. Even so, nearly 60% of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated returned to the West Coast. 

Some groups set up hostels and temporary housing. In 1945, about 130 Japanese Americans moved into the Japanese Language School Buildings, colloquially called "Hunt Hotel," since occupants had arrived from a concentration camp in Hunt, Idaho. Large classrooms housed multigenerational families. Bedsheets partitioned the spaces for privacy.

Post-war, a large classroom on the first floor of Hunt Hotel had been retrofitted into a communal kitchen and living area for two families. It's currently used by Budokan Judo for martial arts classes and training.

Kurt Tokita, the board president of Nikkei Heritage Association of Washington (NHAW), JCCCW's parent organization, says his father lived at Hunt Hotel with his parents and seven siblings. Kurt says his father recounted playing baseball on a small lot where "everybody had to bat left-handed, because otherwise the ball would go into the street."

By 1950, many of the residents of Hunt Hotel had moved to more permanent housing. Some residents had passed on during their stay. 

In 1956, Japanese language classes restarted. When JCCCW took over the spaces, it brought opportunities for renovation and projects like a museum and art exhibits inside the historic buildings. 

Bunka no Hi 2025

On Nov. 2, JCCCW held the annual Bunka no Hi, the Japanese national holiday celebration of culture. This year's theme was "Finding New Beauty – Artful Mending." The event featured artist presentations, a tea ceremony, a shakuhachi Japanese flute presentation, sumo, and the art of swords demonstrations.

Sumo

Rain City Sumo was co-founded in 2021 by Steven Riggs and Nick West, and the martial arts organization trains out of the JCCCW and the Northwest Kajukenbo Club. One of Rain City Sumo's mentors is Bobby Suetsugu, who grew up in the neighborhood and trained in sumo in Japan, attaining the third-highest rank in sumo wrestling, the Makushita level. 

"Pushing [in sumo] is a thing that is absent in many martial arts," said West. "Now other martial artists try sumo and realize this has value for a martial artist."

Riggs says one misunderstanding about sumo is the expectation that you have to be large to participate. "I think it's the opposite," said Riggs. "There's no better way to have a real understanding of the disparity of sizes of opponents you may face anywhere in life, and you have to be creative and brave and find ways to take on those challenges."

The group also has women competitors, like Eileen West, who grew up on Beacon Hill and is Nick's wife. 

"Sumo makes me feel like a strong woman, strong and beautiful. It's very empowering to me," said Eileen, adding there's more demand for women to compete.

Kogin-zashi

Kogin embroidery is an art form from the frigid climate of Aomori prefecture. During Japan's feudal period, peasants and fishing communities were only allowed to wear what grew indigenously. This was mostly linen made from flax, which is known to be cooling. In addition, they were only allowed to wear cloth dyed in indigo and use only white thread. Cotton and silk in other colors were reserved for the merchants, samurai, and upper classes.

Kogin allowed families to create warmer clothing through embroidering. Satomi Toraya's family, who were apple growers in Aomori, live in Bellevue now. "Given the strict clothing guidelines at the time, kogin is a craft created to get through the winter. It was a craft created to survive," said Toraya. "Warm air is trapped between the cloth and embroidery and acts as insulation." 

In Toraya's area of Aomori, most everyone worked in kogin embroidery long ago, but there's very little left today. "People made kogin pieces with beautiful designs, but the memories of the craft associated with poverty and stringent and cruel feudal rules kept people from holding on to their kogin clothing," said Toraya.

Kintsugi

Jen Lo, from Bellingham, facilitated a workshop introducing kintsugi, a Japanese art form of mending pottery after it's been broken. The process takes weeks, if not months, as the lacquer and rice or wheat paste cure for long periods in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment. Some kintsugi can involve filling in space where a piece is missing. The last step is to use gold powder to give a luster to the cracks. 

Lo says she likes the philosophy of kintsugi. "It's the worldview that the fractured parts, the broken parts of us, shouldn't necessarily be obscure. They can even be highlighted with something as precious as gold."

"These art forms find us and teach us something we really need to learn," Lo said. What resonates with Lo is that healing takes time and patience. She recounted her mother saying it's hard to see the effort it takes for a duck to glide across a pond. "Things may look easy and beautiful on the surface, but there's a lot of work underneath," Lo said.

Sashiko

Shannon Roudhán admits she "cried like a baby" when she heard she and Jason Bowlsby were invited to present sashiko at Bunka no Hi. "It shows that they accept us and our work," she said. 

Sashiko is a way to mend ripped clothes, to make them warmer and more durable. It's a process of mending things by adding fabric and stitching them onto the original piece with creative visible stitches. This craft also originated in Japan's north country with very cold winter temperatures.

West Seattle residents Roudhán and Bowlsby have studied sashiko for more than a decade. Their research in sashiko has taken them to Japan and to the basement of the Seattle Art Museum.

Roudhán and Bowlsby have seen sashiko pieces that families have worn for generations. An original piece they saw had been covered and stitched over so many times, Roudhán said the original clothing wasn't visible anymore. 

Momo Mott and sisters Jodhi and Jessika James were in JCCCW's vintage wares shop, Hosekibako. 

"We're all of Japanese descent," said Mott. "It's nice to see our culture being celebrated and people interested in it, and it's a welcoming environment."

"I grew up in Edmonds," said Jodhi James, "and there weren't a lot of people like us there. Now that we're older, we embrace our culture a lot more." 

Kyra McClelland lives in Capitol Hill. "I really enjoyed the atmosphere of feeling like I'm in a space that is very much catering to the community," McClelland said. 

JCCCW will hold its annual Tomodachi Gala on Dec. 11 at Nippon Kan Theatre, 6–8 p.m., to gather funds to continue repairing and upgrading the buildings.