Week 3

(With Rich Saito)

(Dialogue: Public Safety in Japantown)

On Monday, June 24^th, we met with Rich Saito, a former Lieutenant in the San Jose Police Department. Now, he serves as a reserve police officer and is in charge of Japantown Prepared! This week was Safety Week, and Rich taught us the importance of being prepared in the event that an unexpected event (fire, theft, earthquake) takes place. He specifically pointed out ways that we can make our homes safe, and how Japantown Prepared! was able to make the IMB better prepared in the case of an earthquake or fire. Rich also explained the importance of dialogue rather than discussions. Rich explained that—unlike discussions, which can often result in conflicts due to who is right and wrong—dialogue encourages individuals to share different perspectives. It forces individuals to put aside their egos and pride another understand one another. We used dialogue to discuss the importance of public safety. Together, we analyzed why preparedness is important, what safety truly means, how to prevent threats from affecting Japantown, and more. We also learned about the acronym SARA (Scan, Analyze, Response , and Assess) to analyze public safety in Japantown. All in all, it was really nice to get to know Rich and learn about the amazing work that he does here in Japantown. He is a valued member of the community, and he always treats us with the upmost respect. He always lets us know that he values our opinions and perspectives.

(Board Members)

(During the Meeting)

Late afternoon Tuesday June 24th we meet with Rich at the IMB and he took us to the police station on Mission Street. He gave us a tour of the police station and all of the different divisions. After we went to the San Jose Fire Station 1 which covers the Japantown area. We got a brief tour of the station and got to see the inside of a Fire truck/engine (unfortunately no photos from the police/fire station). After we left to grab dinner at Famous Dave's Barbecue to honor the passing of a recent police officer. Unfortunately the wait time was longer than we expected and we were ultimately late to the Community Congress meeting.
When we finally arrived Ellen introduced us and the board members briefly introduced themselves to us. They discussed budgets and regulations. Each board member seemed to be involved however, we did not speak because we felt unexperienced and young. After the meeting we continued our ride along with Rich. He let us decide what part of the city we wanted to see and we decided downtown. After about an hour Rich dropped us off and we called it a day.

(Working on the brochure)

On Wednesday, we decided that our intern project for this week would be to create a public safety brochure to share with the Japantown Business Association, Japantown Neighborhood Association, and the people of Japantown. Thus, we began working on the safety brochure. The goal was to get everything completed by the Wednesday, July 6^th, so the brochures could get printed before Obon next weekend. We first planned out what we wanted the brochure to include. We decided that we wanted the brochure to be a general safety guide that educates Japantown about public safety. The brochure would include how to prepare for fires, earthquakes, and thefts, as well as actions one should take in the event of a disaster or theft. We also wanted to include additional resources that people could refer to to learn more about preparedness, as well as a Did You Know? section that would include important facts about public safety and Japantown. Alex was in charge of content—he researched and gathered all of the information to put in our preparedness guide. I was in charge of the design—I used Adobe inDesign to create the layout of the brochure. Rich was incredibly helpful as he checked both the content and design and assisted us throughout the entire process.

(Us and the SF interns. Steve Nakajo in the center)

On Thursday June 30th we attended our second intern day in San Francisco. We made sure we had enough time to accommodate the traffic and we arrived 15 minutes early. Our first speaker was the Executive Director of Komochi, Steve Nakajo. At first he has an intimidating presences and feared all of the interns. He has an old school manner to him and used modern such as phrases as "ya feel me" and "bro". He went on to tell us his personal stories about living in Japan and San Francisco. He showed us old videos of Kimochi and when it first opened. He let us out to lunch about noon. We all bought bentos and enjoyed them on a public lawn (BYOB- Bring your own bento).

(All the interns eating bentos for lunch)

After we went to the National Japanese American Historical Society. They were not quite ready when we came so the one SF intern who is currently working there gave us a brief tour of the place. Shorty after the executive director Rosalyn Tonai sat down with us and we discusses the history of internment camps. After we got to go upstairs which is closed to the public and see some of their artifacts which was 442 uniforms, helmets, weapons and crafts.

(All the interns and Rosalyn Tonai)

After this was all done we went back to Kimochi and Steve showed us a video of the history of Fillmore street in San Francisco and that concluded our second intern day in San Francisco. However, since we did not want to drive back with heavy traffic we decided to go to the Museum of Modern Arts with the other interns. It was a good experience and we enjoyed each others company. We decided to leave SF around 730 and did not get back to SJ until 830. It was a long exhausting day for the both of us.

(All the interns at the Museum)

On Friday July 1st we had a check in with Ellen at 9:15. She stressed that if we needed anything or if anyone needed anything NCI related that they can contact her. Our meeting was a little shorter than usual because she had a meeting to get to. We met with Rich shortly after at the IMB. Throughout the day we tried finishing our safety brochure. Helen Hayashi invited us to lunch a week in advance so we decided to go to Tsugaro. She got to know us as well as get our perspective on certain topics. We discussed what we would be doing during our time together and we departed. Our third week of the program was enjoyable and memorial with Rich Saito and we look forward to two weeks with Roy.