Looking Back to the Past: Re-examining Seattle’s Once Vibrant Japantown
Seattle’s Chinatown-International District (CID) was once home to the largest Japantown in North America and remains to be one of the most historically significant places for Japanese Americans. In the 1880s, the first wave of Japanese laborers arrived in the Northwestern United States and undertook hard labor to build railroads, sawmills, and farms. Amid the prewar global population growth, by 1930, 8,500 Japanese Americans were living in what is known as the CID today. The district was home to Japanese language schools, newspaper offices, religious institutions, and dojos, which represented Japanese culture and became known as Japantown. The streets were filled with lodgings, restaurants, and stores run by Japanese American …