page_title: History of the Japanese in Seattle
section_title: Culture and institutions
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Japanese in Seattle / Culture and institutions
caption_attribution_description: English: Bon Odori 2014, Seattle, Washington, USA.
context_page_description: There is a population of Japanese Americans and Japanese expatriates in Greater Seattle, whose origins date back to the second half of the 19th century. Prior to World War II, Seattle's Japanese community had grown to become the second largest Nihonmachi on the West Coast of North America.
context_section_description: The Japanese American Citizens League, the oldest and largest Asian American civil rights organization in the United States, held its first national conference in 1930 in Seattle.
  Founded in 1996, Densho is a nonprofit organization based in Seattle, Washington, which collects video oral histories and documents regarding Japanese American internment in the United States during World War II.
  Kip Tokuda, who served as a representative in the Washington State Government, worked to build the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington (JCCCW; ワ州日本文化会館 Wa-shū Nihon Bunka Kaikan) in 2003. The JCCCW dedicated to preserving, promoting and sharing Japanese and Japanese American history, heritage and culture.
  The first recorded Bon Odori festival in Seattle was held in 1932. It's an annual event featuring food, cultural displays, and dancing, and is held along the street in front the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple during the summer. Other long running Bon Odori festivals in the Puget Sound region include those held in Tacoma and the White River Valley.
  The annual Seattle Cherry Blossom and Japanese Cultural Festival began in 1976 to commemorate the gift of 1,000 cherry trees given to Seattle by Japan’s Prime Minister Takeo Miki. Miki has spent some of his student years at the University of Washington in the 1930s.
  Since 1984, an annual floating lantern memorial dedicated to the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all other victims of war has been held at Seattle's Green Lake on August 6th.
caption: Bon Odori in Seattle
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