♪ robert handa: hello, and welcome to "asian pacific america." i'm robert handa, your host for our show here on nbc bay area and cozi tv. first, we take a snapshot of san jose's japantown with the help of long-time j-town photographer jim nagareda, who has not only run one of the top photography studios with his family since 1920, but was involved in a 15-year project documenting the history of japantown. we will see and hear more about that. and jim will also help guide us through the japanese-american museum of san jose, where he currently serves as executive director. then, "asian pacific america" takes you on a tour of bay area restaurants with an asian influence. today, we hit the north bay town of sebastopol to try ramen gaijin, known for sourcing most of their ingredients from local farmers.

culture and food are on the menu today. i've known jim nagareda for many years. and as a professional photographer with an artist's eye, who is part of a family that has been part of the community for over 50 years, i can't think of anyone more qualified to chronicle the history of san jose's japantown than him. jim, welcome to the show. jim nagareda: thank you very much for having me, great. robert: now, give me an idea. first of all, we were talking about the book, "san jose's japantown," of which you got to be the author. first and foremost, must have been a thrill to be asked to be the one documenting the history of the place. jim: yeah, we had just finished a big project called "san jose japantown: a journey." and it was a very comprehensive book on the history of japantown. and during that project, we were asked by arcadia publishing to do this--a book in their series. and at that time, we wanted to focus just on our big book, the journey. and so, we put that off. and when we were done with the big project, we all took a

little breather, and then i asked curt fukuda if he wanted to help me with this book, which he did help me, but he wanted me to take the lead on it. and it took me about a year and a half to complete, and it was a lot of fun. robert: sometimes, you know, the longer projects are easier because you can put in anything you want. then you have a smaller, shorter version, and you have to decide what you want. what were some of the priorities that you wanted to make sure got--came across about san jose's japantown? jim: one of the big things was focusing on the community. 'cause you'll see a lot of the photos in the book are of people because basically, the structure and the layout of japantown has remained the same. and it's the people that have changed, and it's the places like the buddhist church and wesley united methodist church that have kind of been the anchor of the community. but overall, the layout of japantown has pretty much

remained the same. it's just all the fantastic people that are in the community. robert: and of course, one of the things i should point out in case people didn't get it, which is a lot of the photographs that are in here were taken by you. so, you were not only chronicling it visually, but also you were there to experience it yourself. one of the pictures that i was talking to you about before was the sumo wrestling and some of the other things that kind of brought san jose's japantown into sort of--kind of a more national focus, maybe even an international focus. how big a moment was that japan--for japantown was that sumo wrestling thing? jim: that was an incredible weekend. you know, to have the sumo wrestlers come into japantown was just amazing 'cause they're considered gods in japan. and to be that close to them and experience that was just--it was just life-changing, incredible. robert: right, and yosh uchida, a san jose judo coach, as well as a long-time friend of japantown, was the one that kind

of helped bring them here. in fact, that's one of the things that you really get across when you see the book and some of the other projects you work on, which is how long some of the people have been involved with san jose's japantown. a lot of the people who have been here from the early days are still doing things in the community now. jim: yeah, there's a lot of really dedicated people in the community that really want to make sure that san jose japantown stays san jose japantown. and they volunteer so many hours, and they give so much to the community, it's just incredible. and it really, really keeps the community together and cohesive. robert: yeah, you touched on it before because there were so many japantowns at one time, now there's three, and they're only in california: los angeles, san francisco, and san jose. but san jose is the only one that's still in the same place that it was then, huh? jim: exactly, exactly. and there were actually 46 japantowns before the war.

and then only three remain now. robert: when i see some of the pictures here, and some are such personal family pictures of the kogura and some of the other families that have been around for so long. it was really important for these families and these people to share their photos, and it's still important for them to kind of keep the history alive, to keep providing those, huh? jim: yeah, definitely. and you know, and especially that kogura photo, you'll see the many generations and that have worked the store over the year, that have been involved in the community. so yes, it's was very important for the families. robert: i know it was interesting, in fact, you know, growing up in the area, kogura family was involved in showing samurai movies in japantown. and they used to show the projector, the screen onto the side of a building, and we used to go to watch it. jim: oh really? wow, wow, wow. robert: i know, but it was really made for a lot of the roots and the connections for people. japantown is changing now, though, huh? what's the modern picture of japantown, san jose's japantown now?

jim: it's really changed. it's kind of become more of a lot of retail stores, a lot of clothing stores, a lot of restaurants. we have a ukulele shop. playing the ukulele is very popular right now. so, it's changed considerably over the years. robert: and yet, even the name--the types of shops that you're mentioning, the businesses, shows that it sounds like japantown hasn't gone the way of, like, becoming a tourist kind of place. it's still trying to retain that same feeling, huh? jim: yeah, we're--we tell people that we're kind of like the country town. you know, you walk down the street and you can say hi to just about everybody that you know that's walking by. and that's the feeling that we want to keep in san jose. we want to--i wouldn't say necessarily keep out corporate america, but we've been able to maintain that mom and pop feel to the area, which is great. robert: right, well, we've got much more to talk about. you're going to stay with us, right?

jim: yes. robert: all right, well, stay with us because we're going to come back with a tour of the museum, the san jose japanese-american museum. that's next.

it's time for the biggest sale oit senses and automaticallyep adjusts on both sides.

the new 360 smart bed is part of our biggest sale of the year where all beds are on sale. and right now save 50% on the labor day limited edition bed. robert: and welcome back. talk about wearing a lot of important hats. jim nagareda is back with us. and before we continue here, we mentioned that your family had a connection with the photography business since 1920, more like around 1960 was the first family business, right? and you opened the photography business in 1990. jim: yes. robert: still impressive. and we didn't think you were old enough to be a photography shop owner since 1920. okay, but he is currently the executive director of the japanese-american museum of san jose, which showcases a unique collection of permanent and rotating exhibits chronicling more than a century of japanese-american history. and let's go talk about that a little bit. first of all, the 30th anniversary is coming up, right? jim: so yes, the 30th anniversary.

the museum has been around for 30 years, but in the last 10 years is when it moved into the current location. and during that time, it's been run completely by volunteers, which is so impressive. and we have a lot of exhibits in the museum, and we have a lot of dedicated volunteers that help to run it. we have one area of the museum that has a rotating exhibit, where we change. we have also a large area that covers agriculture. and one of our big donors and supporters is h.e. sakuwe, and he donated the model t for our exhibit, which they actually drove over to put into the exhibit. and a lot of farm equipment also. robert: i couldn't believe it. in fact, having grown up in the area and my grandparents had a couple of farms in the south bay, seeing that equipment was just--it really brought back a lot of memories, and it probably

does for a lot of people here. but i also thought of the fact that i'd seen the museum evolve into where it became the place that it is now. and it used to be more of a place where japanese-americans would look, and now that i see that a lot of people from outside the community, the japanese community, come there to see it, which i think is a very gratifying thing, huh? jim: surprisingly, we get a lot of tour groups coming in. we get a lot of school kids learning about internment coming in. visitors from other countries. it's amazing, every day somebody different or new comes in from, you know, who knows where. that's what makes the job a lot of fun is you meet all these great people that come in. and actually, there's a lot of people from japan that also they don't know the story about the japanese-americans, so they're very curious and want to find out, you know, our story. robert: and it's really important to have a museum setting, huh? i mean, you know, you can read it in the textbooks and you can hear even testimony, but seeing the way the museum lays things

out not only with the photographs, but with the exhibits and the artifacts, in order for young people to really appreciate it, i think that thing is really crucial, huh? jim: yeah. and i think, you know, our docents really do a great job. a lot of them have actually been through the camp experience, so they're able to share that with the guests, and which gives it that personal touch. and it really makes--you know, people really, really appreciate our docents and really enjoy the stories that they tell as they're leading the tour. robert: one of the things i've noticed too in doing a lot of different topics with young people on this show is that a lot of them do eventually, earlier or later, start searching for their roots, their cultural roots. they start to--they're american and they adopt a lot of, like, maybe more generic american sort of ideals and values. then, sooner or later, i notice a lot of them start searching for that cultural identity. and that's where a place like this museum is so valuable. jim: yeah, i think, like you mentioned, it's kind of a phase

that people go through in life, actually. and i think as people get older and their parents start aging, or their parents or grandparents start passing away, they become more curious about where they were from and what they did. you know, there's not that many people left that lived through the concentration camps, so we're trying to capture those stories on video and however else we can. but yes, we definitely are trying to outreach more to the young people. robert: i know the idea of incarceration and the camps, i notice that some young people when we were at the museum recently, how jarring it is for them to kind of picture that. for them, it's almost too much to kind of take in to think of america being that way at one time. jim: and it's so relevant today. you know, it's just so relevant. and that's another reason why the japanese-american community

really needs to speak out and tell the people about these stories so that, you know, it doesn't happen again. robert: yeah. in fact, i think it was the references to the muslims by our current president who actually helped spark a little bit of interest in when people started saying, "well, it could happen." when in fact, when people first heard that idea, they thought, "that's ridiculous, it's america." and then they're almost shocked, even especially young japanese-american children, to hear that it did happen and that it happened here. jim: exactly. and you know, even within one of the japanese concentration camps, there were actually italians and germans there also. and a lot of people didn't know that. robert: yeah. and so, we've seen how the museum has expanded. how do you see the museum sort of expanding its role now in the community? jim: within the community, we're trying to become more of a community hub. we have such--we have a lot of volunteers involved. and so, we want to expand the different types of programs

that we have. we want to get more space. we have a house next door on our property that needs to be fixed up, so that's one of the next big projects is to work on that. and then expand our archive and things like that. robert: oh, the house, is that going to be an expansion then into the museum, or is that going to be part of the--an exhibit of some kind? jim: it'll be--we'll move some of the programs over to the house, and then include hopefully an archive and some storage, yes. robert: where would you like to see the museum be, like, in a few years? jim: there's so many things. it's--the museum really--if we can get more space, we can tell more stories, we can do more things. that's the real limiting factor right now is space. and so, if we can get another building or two, and maybe separate some things out, i think we can be a real huge benefit to the community.

robert: good luck with that project. and thanks for being here, jim. jim: thank you so much for having me. robert: all right, well, coming up, on saturday, august 26, a wine tasting and talk story event starting at 5:30 at the issei memorial building at 565 n 5th street in san jose, featuring award winning wines from mikami vineyards from lodi, while listening to the story of how the mikami family started growing grapes in lodi. then, the big japanese-american museum of san jose 30th anniversary celebration, sunday, september 24 at the hayes mansion in san jose. a luncheon with entertainment by san jose taiko, ayako hosokawa, and a silent auction. and you can get more details on both events on nbcbayarea.com. we'll help them with that expansion. and when we come back, ramen. and not just any kind of ramen, and you'll find out why next.

robert: and we are starting a new series of stories called asian pacific america eats, where we go out and showcase some bay area restaurants. for this show, we sent producers lance liu and joakim studio to give us a behind the scenes look at ramen gaijin in the north bay town of sebastopol. as we said earlier, it's known for sourcing the majority of its ingredients from local farmers, so have a taste. male announcer: you can find a number of ramen shops around the bay area, but there's one shop in particular, 55 miles north of the golden gate, that serves up a hot bowl that's worth the drive. a trip up highway 101 takes you to the small town of sebastopol, where you'll find ramen gaijin, a restaurant that is said to connect the community by sourcing most of its ingredients straight from the local farmers. gaijin, a japanese word meaning foreigner, also tells patrons not to expect authentic ramen. rather, it's a bowl that truly represents the agricultural

culture of sonoma county. matthew williams: it never quite felt right, you know? myself, my partner are not japanese. we don't have extensive training in japan. but we are gaijin to the japanese. announcer: chef/owner matthew williams takes us to the kitchen, where his team is preparing to open up for lunch. and it starts with noodles made in-house. first, they mix together flour, salt, and other ingredients. then it's off to the laminator, where the mixture is pressed flat a number of times to create a smooth and consistent texture. finally, the sheets are cut into noodles, and portioned into single servings. next up is the stock. matthew: so, we start with kombu sourced out of hokkaido, so it's a rishiri kombu. gets brought up to 140 degrees, and we cut it off, we let it steep. we strain the liquid off that, discard the kombu, and then we add three separate bushi. and then that's what you're seeing joel strain off here. so, this is going to come off, it's going to go through,

you know, a three-step filtering process. and then at this point, we'll let it cool, and then we mix it in with our meat stock and our broths. announcer: finally, it's time for the assembly, where every minute really counts. matthew: so, when we think of ramen, like we were talking about earlier, you think about the broth, which is the body of the soup, and then the tare, which is the seasoning. so, what he's adding to this is for both the shiitake miso as well as the tantanmen. so, he added the miso tare, and now he's adding the chili paste that we make in-house. has calabrian chili, ghost chili, some other chilies, shichimi, garlic ginger, saki. it's cooked down, gets pureed, pork fat. so, you go ahead and do the shiitake miso as well. so, the same base, miso tare. this one has a heavy sesame profile, so this is going to get sesame seeds, gomei, and also sesame oil. so, this is a guruji sesame oil from japan we bring in. also gets miso butter, so it's a compound butter that we make

that has aka miso and just a whole lot of salted butter. and the last one we're going to do is going to be the shoyu ramen. so, the tare of this is soy sauce. there's--basically, it's similar to dashi. we bring it up with kombu, we add different bushis to the soy sauce, garlic, ginger, cut that, then strain everything off so that creates the tare for the shoyu ramen. he's also adding pure pork fat, which we render off of our bellies. and then katsu bushi salt, so we toast hanakatsu bushi, which is a dried bonito, and then blend that with salt to add another salt layer to the profile. also add a lot of umami through the dried fish. at this point, it's all about timing in the process for us. so, the bowls go in the oven. he's going to add the noodles to the boiler. it's going to hit the timer. and then at this point, we're basically on a countdown for those bowls coming out of the oven. with about 30 seconds left to go, we pull the bowls up, they come on, they get broth, the noodles go in. and we bring over to the pass to start topping.

we're getting carrots coming from paul wertz out of paul's produce in sonoma. we have baby bok choy coming from singing frogs farms here in sebastopol, one of the farms we work extremely closely with. like i said, the corn is coming from brenwood. we have kikurage or wood ear mushroom. this is wakame, which is seaweed. this is coming from japan as well. and then we have scallions. so, there you have the shiitake miso ramen, gets finished with the 6-minute egg, fried tofu, and ito togarashi. this is just shredded togarashi chili threads. so, tantanmen for us. so, we're set. we're going to add the kikurage, the wood ear. we have cabbage which has been charred on a cast iron pan and salted. and then scallions. we add the egg in the center. pork belly chashu, so this is our braised pork belly that we

go through a 3-day process of curing, pressing--or braising, and then pressing and cutting. and then it gets green frill mustard, which is also coming from jackson family farms. announcer: just like the different cultures that have taken root in sebastopol, each of these different elements coming together is what makes each bowl of ramen gaijin so special. robert: mighty tasty. our thanks to my colleague, mike inouye, for his help on that segment. and you can get a taste of ramen gaijin yourself at the taste of sonoma wine country weekend, saturday, september 2 from 12 to 4 p.m. at the green music center at sonoma state university, an event where sonoma county's top winemakers, growers, and chefs will come together to celebrate the region's finest wine and food. to purchase tickets, go to nbcbayarea.com. and coming up, we'll look at some important events coming up in our community calendar, including news about kristi yamaguchi, and a return look at flower power.

there are some very important events coming up in the bay area. a fascinating exhibit at the university of san francisco thatcher gallery from august 21 to november 15 called "something from nothing." art and handcrafted objects from america's concentration camps. we were proud to showcase this exhibit on our show before. it features over 100 objects created by incarcerated japanese-americans during world war ii, including handmade objects, historical artifacts, and photographs from the collection of the national japanese-american historical society, as well as contemporary art installations from barbara horiuchi and marlene imamura. it's all co-presented by the historical society. get more information from nbcbayarea.com. then kristi yamaguchi's golden moment show comes to the sap center in san jose on sunday, september 3, an evening with the world's top figure skaters, including karen chen, polina edmunds, maia and alex shibutani, and vincent chow, and more. we'll be featuring kristi and her show on our show next week.

then another show we are proud to have featured and certainly warrants another look, the flower power exhibit at the asian art museum of san francisco, open now and through october 1. quite a bit of look through our show today. you can also catch us on facebook, as well as twitter, and on nbcbayarea.com. and that's it for our show. join us next week and every week here on "asian pacific america." thanks for watching. ♪

i think there's . i think there's blame on both sides. >> they tried to -- >> conservatives trusted steve bannon. >> everyone was just running away. >> it is a chance for us to connect with the cauosmos. >> good morning, welcome to sunday today on august 20th. i'm willy geist. it's been 8 days now since an alleged white supremacists drove into a crowd killing a woman named heather heyer. saturday people took to the streets across the nation to denounce racism. the largest ral