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I think the Bay Area and L.A. area are very even from a "hub" perspective.
Asian Consulates in both SF and LA:
China
Republic of China/Taiwan (Economic & Cultural Office)
Indonesia
Israel
Japan
Philippines
South Korea
Asian Consulates in L.A. but not in S.F.
Afghanistan
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Bangladesh
Iraq
Kuwait
Lebanon
Malaysia
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Asian Consulates in SF but not in L.A.
India
Singapore
Vietnam
In what way is Los Angeles more of a cultural hub for Japanese people than the Bay? LA is home to one of three Japantowns in the USA, the other two being in San Francisco and San Jose. Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is home of the oldest Japanese tea garden in the country. Los Angeles does have a better Japanese American museum, but in what specific way is LA a more important cultural hub for Japanese people? Having a bigger population does not make it the better cultural hub.
The same could be said of the Filipino population and the Vietnamese population. LA obviously has the more culturally relevant Korean and Thai populations but the others are very debatable.
How about the large overseas Japanese business community here? There's a good deal of Japanese media, car, and banking companies with their US headquarters based in the Los Angeles area. A lot of the revival of the mid-Wilshire after the riots came from Japanese investors. It feels like there's been a pretty strong continued exchange with Japan in Los Angeles and it's visible in places like Sawtelle. I myself used to work on a lot of projects with LA-based Japanese productions.
Actually, the diaspora of Asians away from the traditional centers of SF and LA favors Northern California far more than Southern California.
In fact, the Asian proportion in NorCal is so great that it pulls the entire state up to 12%, whereas SoCal as a whole is actually below that.
Its obvious many people are not aware of Asians long history and prominent place not only in the Bay Area, but also the Central Valley.
You're right to some extent, but you leave out that Southern California is far more populous than Northern California is and the difference in percentages doesn't change that socal still has a larger population in absolute numbers. However, even that's a bit of missing the point since the topic was whether or not socal or the Bay Area were greater hubs--and not the Central Valley (which can be divided between norcal and socal or be a region by itself).
If the red's a dig at me, then I think it's misplaced because I have fairly personal connections with the Central Valley and I am Asian.
We're not talking about the hub, we're talking about the cultural hub, which is a different question. In terms of population then yeah, LA has more Asians than the Bay. Nobody disputed that.
There's usually a strong correlation between demographics and cultural influence, isn't there?
I understand historically the Bay Area was more important and it still is a primary hub (cultural and otherwise), but Los Angeles is in some ways the larger hub (of course, not for every Asian culture and not in every single way).
The question of history is a bit hard to deal with because the vast majority of the Asian population in the US has been established here for less than a century (immigration used to be really difficult if you weren't White up until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965--no, not a typo, 1965) and so there are a large number of Asian communities in the US that have very little personal/familial history with the older historical communities. It also happens that maintaining links with the community from back home is now really easily done--how these newer communities play into being a hub would be an interesting discussion. Are these less hubs because they are so connected to back home so have a slightly lessened regional identities? Or are they more so because they can be considered somewhat more authentic despite being somewhat less accessible to outsiders?
How about the large overseas Japanese business community here? There's a good deal of Japanese media, car, and banking companies with their US headquarters based in the Los Angeles area. A lot of the revival of the mid-Wilshire after the riots came from Japanese investors. It feels like there's been a pretty strong continued exchange with Japan in Los Angeles and it's visible in places like Sawtelle. I myself used to work on a lot of projects with LA-based Japanese productions.
Side note, there's also Tokyo pop.
Man, I didn't know Tokyo Pop was headquartered in LA. LA really has that Japanese pull.
Man, I didn't know Tokyo Pop was headquartered in LA. LA really has that Japanese pull.
Well, I should say there was. It shut down several months ago. Doesn't count for much overall, but it was still a nice little gateway to Japanese pop culture.
LA for Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese, Filipinos, Indonesians, and Southeast Asians.
The most Filipino Metro in California is Solano County(Vallejo-Fairfield, CA MSA)
Filipino Population, 2010 Census & Percentage to Total Population
Vallejo-Fairfield, CA MSA 52,641 12.5% San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA MSA 287,879 6.6%
San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA MSA 182,248 5.8%
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA MA 105,403 5.7%
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA MSA 463,626 3.6%
Sacramento-Arden Arcade-Roseville, CA MSA 73,866 3.3%
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA MSA 25,103 3.0%
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA MSA 117,928 2.7%
Bakersfield-Delano, CA MSA 20,296 2.4%
Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta, CA MSA 9,693 2.2%
Fresno, CA MSA 13,491 1.4%
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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A lot of Japanese farmed the central valley and other agricultural areas of California in the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century. Those who weren't otherwise kicked out, after they were released from internment during the war never returned for whatever reason. Learned that at the Japanese American Museum. Like the Chinese communities in places like Truckee, it would be interesting to imagine what California would be like if it still had such a predominant Asian presence in rural areas. These groups would all be basically American by now, of course, but interesting to think about.
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