THE SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL REPRODUCTION OF JAPANTOWN/ NIHONMACHI

IN SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

by

Samah Safiullah

A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

The University of Utah

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Honors Degree in Bachelor of Arts

In

The Department of City and Metropolitan Planning

Approved:

______________________________ Keith Bartholomew Thesis Faculty Supervisor

_____________________________ Stacey Harwood Chair, Department of XXXX

_______________________________ Keith Bartholomew Honors Faculty Advisor

_____________________________ Sylvia D. Torti, PhD Dean, Honors College

“Place memory encapsulates the human ability to connect with both the built and natural

environments that are entwined in the cultural landscape. It is the key to the power of historic

places to help citizens define their public pasts: places trigger memories for insiders, who have

shared a common past, and at the same time places often can represent shared pasts to outsiders

who might be interested in knowing about them in the present.”

-Dolores Hayden, The Power of Place; Urban Landscapes as Public History

Abstract

My honors thesis is a historical, theoretical, and methodological approach to

understanding the social and physical formation of Japantown and Japantown Street in Salt

Lake City. I am interested in the formation of a specific ethnic enclave and micro-neighborhood

which once existed. My thesis will analyze and record archives of Salt Lake City’s Japantown, in

addition to oral histories of individuals who lived in Japantown and have connections to the

Topaz internment camps of Delta, Utah. This research project’s purpose is to understand the

gaps of recorded history in Salt Lake City, and the ways in which racialized, discriminated, and

minoritized ethnic communities’ histories are often erased and disappear due to dominant Euro-

centric modes of knowledge production and power. I aim to fill these gaps through the stories of

community members. These individual narratives will allow for a perspective of identity

formation through the lens of gender, race, class, and ethnicity. The thesis will also look at the

past decisions made to destroy and develop over Japantown, and the decisions/influences which

led to the designation of a certain group of people to segregated and cheap industrial lands high

influenced and impacted by urban externalities such as noise and pollution.

For this project, I am directly working with graduate student Naba Faizi on her thesis

also related to Japantown. I will be assisting her with recording oral histories/interviews,

creating a short documentary, and building an archival website of photographs, documents,

information, etc. regarding the history and current state of Japantown. My work will assist in

supplementing her project which is rooted in the present and future of Japantown, as well as

community engagement and activism contingent with the Japanese community and individuals of

Salt Lake City.

Introduction

While it is unknown to the public knowledge of Salt Lake City residents, the area in

which the towering Salt Palace Convention Center lies used to be what one might label an ethnic

enclave, minority neighborhood, or immigrant hub for a thriving and bustling Japanese

community. Recently, the public has heard chatter of conflict in this area, as The Ritchie Group,

a large-scale real estate development company, has invested in a project called Block 67 which

will be built directly on Japantown Street, or 100 South. This tucked away street contains the two

remaining historic buildings of Japantown (The Japanese Church of Christ and The Japanese

Buddhist Temple). Once the (incorrect) rendering of the project was announced, a public history

fight, or at least question about a past fight, was revived and the question of what happened to

Japantown in the beginning was brought up by several mainstream Salt Lake City publications

such as the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News. These media outlets asked questions which the

Japanese community have been fighting to remain in public consciousness: what will happen to

Japantown Street, and how will its memory and history be preserved?

(This rendering of the Block 67 development by the Ritchie Group incorrectly faces the

mountains, intentionally or unintentionally creating a distortion of the space it formulates.)

With this current discourse, my thesis aims to walk back in history and draw a timeline

which counters the previous questions asked by the mainstream media, and rather asks: What

allowed the City to disrupt and displace a safe haven, and which mindsets led to the

gentrification and removal of a cultural landscape layered with memories of pain, trauma, and

escape from direct persecution, racism, sexism, and exploitation? The Japanese-American

people have a very distinct relationship with citizenship, belonging, and place-making in the

United States, Utah, and Salt Lake City. This relationship deserves to be amplified through the

voices of the insiders who have suffered and persevered through time.

As a researcher, my goal for this project is to gather the existing materials, resources, and

stories of Japanese Americans who have a significant, emotional, and historical connection to the

pre-existing space. With a combination of history, theory, and social interaction, I aim to observe

the harmful consequences of Urban Renewal in Salt Lake City and the ways in which it forces

dispersal, dislocation, and root shock among an already marginalized and minority community. I

aim to analyze the ways in which imperialist and colonialist mindsets influence the histories

which are recorded. I do not wish to speak for a community, rather observe the voices which

have been recorded and placed in the shelves of the Marriott and Downtown Library, and to

contrast the information with the oral interviews and histories of those dedicated to the

Japantown of their personal past.

This project recognizes that both the country of the United States and the state of Utah

have a long history of violent colonialism and imperialism which began the mindset and

approval of the actions which led to the destruction of Japantown. A paper regarding a plot of

land in Utah must recognize the Indigenous peoples whose land we all occupy and have

complacency with.

The timeline of this history observes and discusses a few distinct points of time: The first

arrival of Japanese immigrants to Utah and their settlement, the establishment of Salt Lake City’s

Japantown through settlement, the disruption of Japantown during World War II through the

internment of Japanese people in Topaz internment, and the revival and destruction of Japantown

post internment.

The formation and existence of Japantown is due to many various historical phenomena

over time. The primary literature regarding Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans in

Utah are histories written or informed by unconventional forms of records, such as oral histories

and archived documents. A primary theme noted in resource compilations by historians and the

Japanese community is the actual experience of migration to the United States.

This entrance into globalization represented two main topics: the emergence of a

capitalist exchange of labor across borders, and a new, evolving perception of a culture from the

American government and people, which often held highlighted tones of Orientalist

understandings of a “Far East” culture. This is shown in various pieces of literature which focus

Asian populations and individual narratives within Utah.

History

The first Japanese people to arrive to the United States were those of an elite class,

breaking what the world then knew as “Japanese Isolation”. Drawing in a stark contrast with the

later influx of working-class people (farmers, peasants, fishermen, etc.), the evolution of

America’s attitude towards the Japanese population fluctuated depending on the political and

social relationships both governments had established with each other, and who was considered

to be “acceptable” and “respectable” to the American public and society.

“The newest interpretation of the social and political integration of ethnic enclaves uses

global-ization theory to redefine the local place not as a self-contained niche but rather as a node

in a transnational circuit to which it contributes and that also influences its daily activities”.

When the first official ambassadors from Japan arrived in the United States in 1860,

Harper’s Weekly wrote a piece which reflected on their visit:

“Our people will go to Japan and will endeavor to show the Japanese the best side of the

American character. On the other hand, the Japanese—if good relations be established between

the two countries—will send out some of their people to plant Japanese colonies in our territory.

Of this interchange the benefit will be obvious and mutual. Civilized as we boast of being, we

can learn much of the Japanese—if nothing more, we can learn the duty of obeying the laws.”

As a popular public media publication, Harper’s Weekly reflects the Western attitudes of

conditionality within accepting the emergence of a new cultural relationship with the United

States. The words “civilized” and “obeying” create a standard of respectability politics. The

Japanese people were beneficial to the American people because of their model minority status,

in which they could at the very least produce a sense of obedience and civility. “Social

constructions of group identity that are generated and transmitted by the media in its capacity as

a moral entrepreneur lend powerful support for public policies created by the political

entrepreneurs who institutionalize these constructions, thereby giving them additional credence

and legitimacy.” (Schneider, 84). The first emergence of this culture did not create a sense of

alarm because there were no initial threats of resistance, protest, or objection to the construction

of what it meant to be a “good citizen” with the United States.

This attitude quickly changed however and transitioned into the formation of Japanese

people falling under the “problem minority” trope. “For the positive construction to exist, it must

be constructed against a negative one, --neither can exist without the other” (Schneider 81).

The reasons for why Japanese communities migrated to United States and Utah varied,

however there is no denial of the harsh bigotry and direct discrimination which Japanese

communities faced from the late 1800s to the late 1900s. “Japanese immigrants and their citizen

children were initially described by detractors as “different in color; different in ideals; different

in race; different in ambitions; different in their theory of political economy and government.”

The beginning of the formulation Japantown is a space arising out of survival and

escapism from this treatment. A direct parallel with migration from the Topaz Internment camps

to Japantown can be drawn. Japanese communities could arrive in the United States after the

American Japanese treaty of 1854 ended Japanese Isolation and allowed for the first Japanese

ambassadors to arrive in 1860. Oral interviews conducted in 2000 highlight the stories of

Japanese families who established themselves in Salt Lake City as a mode of economic and

social survival. The mid to late 1800s demonstrated two main populations moving to the United

States. The first were primarily male laborers, those working in the railroad, mining, and

agriculture industries. While ambassadors and government officials came to visit, it was

primarily a working-class population drawn to the United States for the economic prospects it

provided. Alongside the men, a picture bride phenomenon occurred alongside certain

exclusionary policies established once the United States shifted from an Orientalist perspectives

of Japanese people as “respectful, submissive, and quiet” to “dangerous and threatening” and the

White populations of America began to feel emotions of fearfulness and envy (Kelen and Stone,

2000). In 1870, the Naturalization Act of 1870 was passed, limiting Japanese gain of citizenship.

The picture bride phenomenon demonstrates a gendered experience which is an integral

part of both migration from San Francisco to Utah and from different Northern and Southern

parts of Utah to Salt Lake City. It is essential to understand that these young women who found

their way to the States through marriage were the backbone of agriculture, craft, and food

industries and the establishment of many businesses which made up the fabric of a thriving

Japantown SLC. Picture brides were young women from Japan, usually ages between 18 and 22.

The stories of these women describe the diverse , determined, resourceful, and tenacious stories

of women who faced long periods of bitter labor, bigotry, and social isolation while often raising

family in different parts of Utah, often in what is now identified as historic Japantown. This

generation of Japanese peoples are known as “Issei”.

At this point, it is also important to recognize these nativist fears later influenced the

segregation of Blacks and Latinos into nearby locations to that of Japantown. These communities

were part of what folks on the East side would consider ghettos, but the social cohesion and

networks, as well as intergenerational strength generated in these areas would also label them as

thriving and beautiful ethnic enclaves unfortunately also wiped out due to similar Urban

Renewal actions.

Timeline:

• 1900’s - Japanese population grows for railroad labor, later coal

mining, and farming.

• 1907 - Gentlemen’s Agreement

• 1912 - Intermountain Buddhist Church Founded

• 1914 - First SLC Japanese School

• 1924 - Japanese Exclusion Act

• 1941 - Attack on Pearl Harbor, Utah Legislature restricts Japanese to

a yearly lease on land

• 1942 - US Relocation Authority, imprisons Japanese at Topaz, Dalton

Wells, and Dog Valley

• Post WWI (1920’s)- Establishment of Japantown (businesses, retail,

laundry, noodle house, etc)

• Post WWII- Growth of SLC’s Japantown with the release of many

Japanese from internment camps

• 1950’s - Further Development and establishment of Japantown family

business as well as residential areas

• 1967 - Destruction of Japantown to make way for SLC Salt Palace

Convention Center, as well as other demolition projects.

• 1995 - Salt Palace is replaced with updated convention center

• 2007 - Official establishment of Japantown Street name designation

on 200 south after community request.

• 2017 - Appeal of Conditional Use for commercial parking lot for

further future development

• 2019 - RDA and Ritchie Group make plans for Block 67, a large mixed-

use hotel, residential, and commercial building that would take the

place of the remaining Japantown buildings.

Leading to Internment

In 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt released Executive Order 9066. The order was initiated

due to the attack on Pearl Harbor from Japanese Navy. The order stated that Japanese

Americans were to be investigated by the FBI and sent to internment camps for questioning.

Many of the Japanese were sent to different camps, some from Utah were relocated having to

leave what they have behind, others from neighboring states, such as Oregon or California were

sent to Topaz camp in Delta, Utah. There were approximately 8,000 internees in the camp, many

of them were women and children.

Throughout the years in the camp, the community worked on very low wages, living in horse

sheds, with limited food and resources. There was also a school for children to continue their

education while in the camp.

After the war, the internees were released, given $25 for travel, some went back to Japantown or

stayed in Utah. Others went to other states. Japantown once again, became a place of refuge, to

start over. In between the time in the camps, many of the properties in Japantown were

established by others or were being demolished for new development. The community again,

reestablished what was built to start a new life.

(Naba Faizi, Life in Japantown Documentary)

Ted Nagata

The memory of being interned was very present in the interview conducted with Ted Nagata. Mr.

Nagata is a retired graphic designer artist, and an active community member with regards to

maintaining and reviving the history of the Japanese community in Salt Lake City. The first

question asked during the interview with Mr. Nagata was “Where were you born?”. He

immediately began a narrative about his short journey from being born in Santa Monica,

California, to moving to Berkeley, to being “incarcerated not due to being spies, but to being

Japanese”, all at the young age of 7 years old. Nagata speaks of uncomfortably living in a horse

stall while the Topaz internment camp was still being built. He describes an “unpleasant” train

ride of 16 miles out to the desert of Delta. He was incarcerated for three and a half years and

lived in a one room barrack with his family, without walls. Blankets held up with strings turned

into their walls. With this statement, Nagata follows by saying that it was an incredibly

unpleasant time and living situation.

The trauma which followed the months of being incarcerated forever changed Nagata’s

life after his family relocated to Salt Lake City. His mother became so depressed that she could

not function as a human being. Nagata states, “although she was with us, she wasn’t a mother.

She was depressed and sick”. Because it was difficult for his father to work and take care of two

children, Nagata and his sister were sent to St. Anne’s Orphanage on 2100 South and 400 East.

This was the most structured part of Nagata’s life, and he was grateful for the stability it

provided him with. He does, however, express that his education wasn’t “up to par”. Nagata

expresses the effect of incarceration on his consciousness and perception of self and says “We

tried to be as civilized as we could”, delivering both the effect of discrimination on behavior, as

well as a reflection of attitudes of the older Japanese generation referred to as “shikataganai".

This attitude of passiveness was described in a letter to the City from the Japanese Community

Preservation Committee:

Many of our own Japanese traditions have impacted the Japanese Community in the past.

One such tradition is "shikataganai" or realistic resignation, no opposition, no objection, no

sign of displeasure-just stoic acceptance. Another is "gaman" or endure at all costs all that

comes your way. The newer Nikkei or Japanese American generations are not so easily taken by

these traditions of our past. Unlike the generation that appeared to passively "accept'' the mass

evacuations from the West Coast during World War II, the younger Nikkei will take a strong and

aggressive stance to prevent any unjust encroachment on our Community. One cannot put a

price on the loss of our heritage, our culture and now the loss of a safe and quiet spiritual

gathering place. The Japanese Community will relentlessly seek fairness under the law.”

Nagata mourns the effect taken on his family through internment. “We lost our homes, we lost

our cars, we lost our business, we lost everything”. Additionally, all of their belongings were

stored in warehouses which were later burglarized. He sums up his narrative on internment by

stating that internement was “a sad history of constitutional rights of American citizens” and how

devastating it was that Japanese people were associated with the people who bombed Pearl

Harbor and “declared guilty because of their race. He recognizes the issues of assimilation,

citizenship, and racism today by acknowledging that “Muslims today are going through the same

scrutiny” and expresses a fear of history repeating itself in certain ways and attitudes.

Transition from Topaz to Japantown

Life after Topaz saw many Japanese—previously living in California—joining the

community in Japantown, as well as a number of the soldiers from the U.S. Army’s majority

Japanese 442nd Infantry Regiment who, while being treated in Utah hospitals, experienced the

hospitality of this community. In 1950, the first of the Issei received their American citizenship.

As new generations of Japanese Americans found themselves engrained in communities

throughout Salt Lake City, these Issei remained the primary residents of a neighborhood still

housing bustling retail shops and two cultural hubs—the Buddhist and Christian churches.

(https://downtownslc.org/downtown-events/news-and-blog/1615-japantown-history-and-

heritage-on-100-south

Why might Japantown SLC be considered an ghetto or an ethnic enclave? Is it a space

which is a synthesis of both?

What classifies a ghetto and an ethnic enclave? How does Japantown fall into a middle of

this spectrum of space production? There are three explanations for the ways in which urban

segregation happens, and ghettos within the United States were often viewed as spaces either for

immigrants and refugees, or the African-American and Black populations isolated. The first

explanation is a form of assimilation or becoming adjusted to a new culture. This might be an

explanation, or rather a symptom of facing discrimination, racism, and violence from a larger

society and finding preference for living among people who are similar in order to escape

bigotry, exclusion, and ridicule. David Cutler, Edward Glaeser, and Jacob Vigdor explore the

other two definitions in The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto (NBER Working Paper

No. 5881):

“Second, "collective action racism," such as restrictive covenants, racial zoning, policy

instruments, and threats of violence which were widespread before 1960, may have

played a role in creating segregated urban neighborhoods. Indeed, the authors find a

much higher use of restrictive real estate covenants in cities that are more segregated.

Third, there may be "decentralized racism," in which whites simply pay more to live in

areas with other whites, a "privilege" that is worth more to whites than to blacks. The

data seem to support this explanation as a contributing factor for the persistent

segregation we experience today, decades after equal housing laws were enacted.”

Through the oral histories primarily and secondarily gathered, there were instances of unofficial

racial zoning which effected where Japanese immigrants were able to find housing. In an

interview with Lorraine Crouse, a Japanese-American descended from Japanese immigrants

living in Japantown, it is discovered that when attempting to finding housing outside of

Japantown in Rose Park, her parents faced direct discrimination. A nearly all-white and Mormon

neighborhood, residents of the area all signed a petition which wouldn’t allow them to move into

a purchased home. Finally, two white men standing up against the petition allowed for her

parents to gain residency within the neighborhood.

The other approach to categorizing Japantown would be to view it as an ethnic enclave, which is

usually a much more positive connotation and better describes the nuances of an immigrant

neighborhood and its interactive dynamics. ““Ethnic enclave” is broadly synonymous with

“cultural community.” Rejecting the negative connotations of “ghetto,” “ethnic enclave”

redefines racially segregated spaces of Asian American class inequity into productive

communities infused with and driven by ethnic culture” (Chang 31).

“Nihonmachi (Japantown) provided rich community life and social support networks, but it can

be characterized as a ghetto in that it was a racially segregated site formed and sustained, not

exclusively but heavily, by structural, that is, legislated and socially encoded racism. For

instance, employment opportunities for the foreign-born issei (first-generation Japanese

Americans) were limited to racially segregated Nihonmachis or “Little Tokyos” because a wide

range of professional fields in the mainstream labor market, like law, architecture, accounting,

dentistry, medicine, and teaching, required citizenship, from which the issei were barred (WRA,

People 33). Likewise, residential choices were limited by structural racism. “Caucasian only”

real estate covenants limited Japanese Americans to undesirable urban districts like Seattle’s

Skidrow slum (Taylor 115– 16).” This description of Seattle’s Japantown is very similar to the

formulation of Salt Lake City’s, and the reason why it would be considered an ethnic enclave

today.

“These neighborhoods of globalization, because they are multicultural sites and engaged in

various forms of transnational relations, are diasporic communities with an ancestral homeland,

were politically incorporated into the new country when the territory they shared with other

groups became a nation-state, or both.”

In Ted Nagata’s interview, he recalls a café in Japantown with a large sign which announced,

“NO JAPS”. He recalls the location to be about 200 South and 200 West. Today, that same

building stands, and is quite ironically a Japanese sushi restaurant. This is a clear example of the

ways in which Japantown is a cultural landscape with an erased memory. Through these oral

interviews, a researcher can slowly tease out the biases and details of history, and what may not

be apparent about the different perceptions and attitudes of a society.

(Found via Marriot Library Archives. Caption: Negative of a photograph showing a man posing

by a sign barring people of Japanese ancestry from living in Kane County, Utah. This was in

1943, when such people were widely viewed with suspicion)

III. Life, Nostalgia, and Memory in Japantown through Oral History

• Jani Iwamoto

-Sage Market, after JT was demolished people were completely dispersed

• Lorraine Crouse

-Industrial designation of area making the space unsafe for children to play and for different

activities to be carried out

-Parking lot blocks out sun

-Connections with Red Light District, immigrant communities, and the “eyes on the street”

concept with sex workers watching over her mother

• Irene Ota

"It's gone, and you can't bring it back."

As the space continued to develop, it became a space in which people found comfort,

excitement, community, shelter, and familiarity. While this area was never classified through

urban studies terms, one can debate whether it is a ghetto or an ethnic enclave. An ethnic enclave

is defined as

Japantown today might be considered as a “cultural landscape” which requires an

observer to look beyond the surface and to ask questions of who the landscape was created by.

Buildings

Extent of Japantown Existing: Church of Christ and the Buddhist Temple

The Japanese Church was a center of haven for Japanese immigrants, specifically those who had

converted from Buddhism to Christianity in Japan before moving to the United States. Increasing

numbers of immigrants were also converted to Christianity after moving to the United States.

(Via State Historic Preservation Office)

Former: The Colonial Hotel, The Noodle House

The Colonial Hotel was a place of housing for many Japanese descendant Americans who

returned from internment in Topaz. It served as a temporary shelter for those searching for

housing in a time of instability and housing/racial discrimination.

(Demolition of Japantown for Salt Palace Convention Center, Marriott Library)

Methodologies

The aim of the methodologies conducted in this thesis project were to challenge the

traditional and mainstream methods of collecting data and writing histories. Through the lens of

cultural landscape, the methods of collection which I chose demanded to ask deeper questions of

race, class, and gender within landscape. While the Salt Palace Convention Center is part of our

everyday perception and landscape, we do not often question the scale of power dynamics and

socio-spatial relations which built this structure. The mainstream forms and distributions of

knowledge and research are often dominated by those who hold social and economic power

within institutions such as academia and the city, state, and national government. When

conducting research as a student or professor, it can be important to identify the “cultural

landscape” of your focused area, and to intentionally counter the hegemonic practices of

excluding marginalized communities’ narratives’ and their histories regarding a certain space,

place, neighborhood, city, business, or building. Richard H. Schein analyzes and dissects cultural

landscapes as well as various forms of archival and photographic research to help assist the

reader in a conscious form of gathering, synthesizing, and understanding historic data and

archives in this chapter from Research Methods in Geography.

In order to understand what Schein identifies as a “cultural landscape”, one should not

assume that the existing site already speaks for itself, as there may have been many historical

alterations of what previously existed, as well as the modifications and narrations which come

with documentation through maps, photographs, journals, articles, etc. No site is apolitical or

removed from the capitalist vacuum which society exists in, therefore the current and past power

relations of the different stakeholders and community members of a site should be carefully

analyzed. When a researcher takes on the responsibility and liberty of archival research, they are

filling in the gaps of mainstream data collection, and often the exclusion of those who have faced

colonialism, racism, sexism, bigotry, and discrimination in a contextualized space. Each research

method and type should take on its own careful approach and thought. For example, many

archives themselves will be the stories of “powerful rich white men”, so it is then the job of the

reader and researcher to read in between the lines and to analyze the gaps in history, or simply

identify whose voice isn’t being used or included.

The author refers “audiencing” the image or visual, and understanding who is looking at

it, how it is being visualized, and how the information has circulated among different individuals

or institutions. Additionally, a piece of infrastructure which may seem mundane in a current

context may actually be an identifier of past historical narratives or oppression which was faced

on that specific land. Schein uses the example of the existence of a telephone pole on a landscape

which used to be a plantation. Even telephone wires and the existence of this technology can still

be used for tactics which are discriminatory, such as unidentified surveillance of certain

communities.

Rather than normalizing certain practices within academic research, this piece

demonstrates how challenging the norm or mainstream can amplify the voices of those who may

now feel invisible or erased, and can simply create better, more complex, and nuanced research,

visualization, and writing.

I chose 4 main resources.

• Recording oral histories

• Accessing photographs through Lorraine Crouse, Special Collection Archival

Specialist with personal connection to Japantown as well as curating various projects

relevant to preserving Japanese American history within Utah

• Documents through the State Historic Preservation Office/Special Collections at

Marriott Library

• Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

What are Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, and how are they helpful?

“The Sanborn Map(s) are a uniform series of large-scale detailed maps, dating from 1867

through 1969 and depicting the commercial, industrial, and residential section of cities. The

maps were designed by surveyor D.A.Sanborn in 1866 to assist fire insurance agents in

determining the degree of hazard associated with a particular property. The D.A. Sanborn

Co. was the first company to offer insurance maps on a national scale in response to the

growth of urban communities after 1850. The company’s surveyors meticulously

documented the structural evidence of urbanization—building by building, block by block,

neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community…Details of buildings include fire

walls, the location and number of windows and doors, style and composition of roofs, wall

thickness, cracks in exterior walls, and makes of elevators. The maps also indicate building

use, sidewalk and street widths, layout and names, property boundaries, distances between

buildings, etc” (J. Williard Marriott Library, n.d.)

For the purposes of this research, Sanborn Fire Insurance maps were useful in confirming

the existence of certain Japanese businesses which stood during the prime time of Japantown.

The main map I retrieved was created and maintained in 1950 and confirmed many stories

and information I found during my research. It was also interesting to see that there were

many Japanese businesses excluded which certain interviewees spoke of. This brings up

questions of whether these businesses were protected, if they were considered valid under a

large-scale perspective, and which communities were seen by surveyors who decided to

record information. This Sanborn map from the 1950s identifies a courtyard which several

interviewees, including Irene Ota and Lorraine Crouse, spoke about.

Whitmore Court lied within a housing complex which was designated for Japanese American

residents. Many children would play in this area, and it was close to other businesses such as

launders and steel production factories.

Works Cited

1. Chang, Yoonmee. Writing the Ghetto : Class, Authorship, and the Asian American

Ethnic Enclave, Rutgers University Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,

http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utah/detail.action?docID=819617.

Created from utah on 2019-04-22 15:09:13.

2. Kelen, Leslie G., and Eileen Hallet. Stone. Missing Stories: An Oral History of Ethnic

and Minority Groups in Utah. Utah State University, 2000.

3. Hayden, Dolores. The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History. The Mit

Press, 2006.

4. Archived Photographs; Special Collections Marriott Library

5. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps; Special Collections Marriott Library

6. Gomez, Basil, and John Paul Jones. Research Methods in Geography: a Critical

Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

7. Archived Resources State Historic Preservation Office

8. Nagata, Ted. Japanese Americans in Utah. JA Centennial Committee, 1997.

9. Naba Faizi-Graduate Student CMP (https://slcjapantown.wixsite.com/utah/interviews)

10. Lai, Clement. “Saving Japantown, Serving the People: The Scalar Politics of the Asian

American Movement.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 31, no. 3,

2013, pp. 467–484., doi:10.1068/d1210.

11. Tanaka, Toshiyuki. Japan's Comfort Women : Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during

World War II and the US Occupation. London ; New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.

Asia's Transformations.

12. Wideman, Trevor, and Masuda, Jeff. (Re)assembling "Japantown": A Critical Toponymy

of Planning and Resistance in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (2015): ProQuest

Dissertations and Theses. Web.

13. Semerad, Tony. “The Future of a Huge Salt Lake City Development Hinges on How to

Honor Japantown and Get $15M for a Big Parking Garage.” The Salt Lake Tribune,

www.sltrib.com/news/2018/12/28/future-huge-salt-lake/.