Researching: Japanese community / population in Tucson? (Phoenix: home, school, pharmacists)

[mishua]

Hi there,

I am considering moving my family and I to Tucson, AZ. There are so many attractive traits of Tucson, but one I do not know of yet at all is the prevalence or existence of a Japanese community.

My wife is from Japan; I am from New York. I'm raising my daughter to be multilingual, so I wanted to see how immersed she could possibly be in Japanese language outside of the home. Furthermore, among the many cuisines we like to eat, Japanese is naturally at the top of the list. What is the prevalence of grocery stores that have Japanese products, or authentic restaurants of Japanese food?

Thank you very much, everyone!

[beTucsonan]

While there are a number of language immersion school programs in Tucson, I am not sure there is a Japanese one. The most popular seem to the Spanish and Chinese.

Also, while there are a number of asian grocers in Tucson, I wouldn't say by observation that any of them are particularly focused on Japanese items.

As for the Japanese food in town, there are a number of options, but I couldn't say for sure that they are "authentic." Yoshimatsu (Yoshimatsu.html) is my favorite, but there are plenty of others depending on your preference. The Tucson Weekly recently did a small feature on the ramen options in town although compared to cities where ramen is more prevalent I have been thus far let down by the Tucson options.

In all, I'd say that if you are looking for a large and immersive Japanese presence, Tucson is not likely to provide that. There certainly could be an active community here that I am not aware of, however. Even coming from a town like Pittsburgh (which I am), the prevalence of Japanese culture in Tucson is noticeably small. That said, though, I would encourage further investigation - I only recently found out that the local Vietnamese culture was - although small - very active and made for a great environment for people seeking to interact with their fellow Vietnamese ex-patriots.

[Salpointe59]

My room mate at the U of A was a member of the Okita family. They are very involved with Karate and Judo at Rendokan Dojo, The brothers are pharmacists. I can probably find out if you want.

[jlawrence01]

There is an organization called the Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition that is sponsoring an event this weekend.

Www.southernazjapan.org
sajcc@yahoo.com


Hope that helps.

[taku_1122]

There's a small and friendly Japanese ex-pat community here in Tucson - with people scattered across the city, so there's not really one centralized zone / area of the city where Japanese families live at here in Tucson. There's a message board - not sure how active it is, but you might check it out: The Japanese Association of Tucson, AZ.

There's a few Asian markets in town (mostly Vietnamese and Korean), but none that's dedicated strictly to Japanese cuisine; however, you can still find essential ingredients needed for cooking. Do not expect to find a market anything like a Mitsuwa or Matukai anywhere in Arizona. Expect to get used to watching TV Japan on Dish - not many as many options on TV as in larger cities of Japanese ex-pats. As mentioned before by another contributor, there's not really a great ramen restaurant here in Tucson - which is too bad, as I got spoiled eating the shio ramen at Santouka in San Diego (which I recommend if you ever visit there).

My wife's biggest complaint - if you want to call it that, is there isn't a direct flight from Phoenix to Narita. So you have to fly out of LA, San Diego, or San Fransisco for a direct flight to Tokyo. Think there's a direct flight from Denver - we tend to avoid it since you're zig-zagging across the country to get back home to Tucson in a puddle-hopper.

Keep your expectations in-line with the size of Tucson, and the population of Japanese ex-pats here in town (which I'd say is roughly a couple of hundred). All in all, still not a bad place to be. Definitely do your homework first, and scope out the place in advance - maybe even plan a short visit for a week to see how it's like?