Video: California Bathhouse Preserves a Japanese American Legacy
A critical part of California's history, Japanese and Japanese Americans helped the state blossom into the agricultural power that it is today. Originally arriving to the United States as laborers in the late 1800s, they came to maintain prosperous farms over the course of a few generations. It was a hard life, but they forged it as best they could, succeeding even when laws and politics were stacked against them.
Today, many "Japantowns" where these immigrants clustered still exist across the United States. While most know of those in the metropolises of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, many people overlook just how extensive Japanese influence was (and is) up and down the West Coast. The rural towns that were home to Japanese immigrants have a history that is just as fascinating, and sometimes more authentic, than what can be found in the cosmopolitan areas.
In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Asia Society staffer Alexis Agliano Sanborn created the video above to explore the Japanese heritage of the rural "California Delta" region by focusing on the Miyazaki Bathhouse in Walnut Grove, which was an important fixture in the Japanese American community from the 1910s through the 1940s.