On February 19, 1942 FDR signed Executive
Order 9066 forcing the relocation of Japanese-Americans to internment camps, including
many citizens whose parents and grandparents were born in this country. Isei,
Nisei and Sansei, 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation Japanese Americans, were taken to the camps, and the area of Los Angeles surrounding 1st
and Alameda was soon repopulated by African-Americans instead, for a time it was even
nicknamed Bronzeville.
When the war was over in 1945, those able to
return and rebuild, did so. In 1946, Ito and Minoru Matoba opened a diner serving noodles and Japanese fare and gave it the rather bold name, Atomic Café, despite the very recent atrocities at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "People
will always remember the atomic bomb. Maybe they will always remember the
Atomic Café," said Matoba.
By the mid-seventies central LA had evolved yet again and years of suburban flight caused the area around the
Atomic to became a scary and brave new world, but the café lingered on. When punk music hit the city in 1977, the Atomic Café was reborn. Nancy
Sekizawa, daughter of the owners and a former singer with the band, Hiroshima, decided to plaster the walls and ceiling of the café with posters
and fliers for punk bands. The jukebox, already a mix of standards, classic
rock and roll and Japanese hits also began to reflect this shift. In short
order, the jukebox at the Atomic was perfectly suited to its clientele and
provided the soundtrack for a unique cultural mash-up.
Paige Osburn, in an article for LA Weekly wrote, "Once upon a time, Sid
Vicious walked into a tiny café in Little Tokyo, got six orders of fried rice
and started a food fight. On another occasion, David Byrne ordered an Egg Foo
Yung and a glass of milk. And on different night, an all-girl band from Los
Angeles picked up a plate of Gogo
Chicken and decided they liked the name."
"I broke my arm one
time when I was in kindergarten and everybody [at the Café] signed it,"
recalls Zen Sekizawa, Nancy's daughter. "It was like, the Screamers logo, anarchy signs - people writing
'fuck you' and putting out their cigarettes on it. Then of course I went to
school and my teacher was horrified. That's when I realized, 'Oh wow, we have a
different lifestyle than other people.'"
The Atomic was an incredible mix of punk, ska, locals (Asians), celebs and great times centered around music. The café closed in 2013, albeit far removed from its punk heyday, and one year ago today the iconic building at 1st and Alameda in
Little Tokyo was demolished. (Here’s where an ex-Angeleno wants to type a sad
face.) The hundred year old bricks
bear witness to the evolution of a city. A city and a café where electric
railway cars once rolled past and punks, artists and Yakuza sat side by
side eating noodles and listening to the Clash, Gene Vincent and Frank Sinatra. As an aside, I find
something quite interesting. I am a Sansei. No, not from Japan. My grandmother came over from Germany in 1908,
an Isei, and I was born to a German-American mother, the Nisei who was never
interned in a camp, but continued to live instead in a charming little home in
Clifton, NJ.
