Valerie 松本 Matsumoto まつもと, “City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles 1920-1950”, 2014 was a nonfiction book of Los Angeles Japanese girls.
The book received the “annual author recognition” recipient award of the Little Tokyo Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. I was at this awards lucheon at the Little Tokyo Branch Library in June 2014. The author quoted the Kashu Mainichi (Japanese newpaper) reporter Joe Oyama who obseved in 1936:
“Los Angeles is to Japanese what Harlem is to the Negro, San Francisco is to the Chinese…”
Valerie 松本 Matsumoto, is a professor of History & Asian Studies at UCLA in Los Angeles. I quote from her book “City Girls”:
“In the prewar era, a majority of the Issei (1st generation Japanese-Americans) and Nisei (2nd generation) held Buddhist affiliation. However, more Japanese on the West Coast converted to Christianity than in Hawaii.
“The Nisei Social World” of “City Girls” is first Buddhist & Christian churches; next the schools and sports were part of the “social world” of Nisei girls.
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