Profiles in Leadership: Collaboration is key for Erich Nakano

Erich Nakano, executive director of Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC), says his journey to housing and community development began with three events. An activist whose parents sought to amplify stories about Japanese internment in the United States, Nakano says friends, family and fellow college students all shined lights on a path to working with the community he loved.

The 1970s
In the 1970s, Nakano dropped out of college and began working at a warehouse. It was there that he first met activists fighting evictions and displacement in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. 
 
One of the three remaining Japantowns in the U.S., Little Tokyo was a cultural center for his family. He

joined friends and coworkers to protect it. "That experience opened my eyes to how people of color were treated," says Nakano, executive director of LTSC. "They’re the first to be displaced if a freeway is being built or a sports stadium is being constructed. They’re the first to face gentrification when the real estate market gets hot." Some of the activists he met at that time went on to start LTSC.
 
A family connection

The second part of his journey came when his parents, Lillian and Bert Nakano, became organizers in a reparation movement for men and women who had been placed in U.S. Japanese internment camps during World War II. After their fathers lost businesses in Hawaii, they’d been relocated to camps in the continental U.S.: Rowher, Arkansas, Heart Mountain, Wyoming and Tule Lake, California.
 
"As the government held hearings across the country, first and second generation Japanese Americans came out and told their stories, many for the first time. My parents told theirs and I saw the incredible power a grassroots movement can have."
 
Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, with compensation for detainees. Nakano says he hopes the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act (HR 40) brings similar results by putting stories in the public eye. "Stories are powerful," he says.
 
Working across cultures

The third experience that moved Nakano toward LTSC came in the 1980s, when he returned to college at the University of California at Berkeley and continued his activism, organizing demonstrations, speaking out – and even getting arrested once when he and other students tried to get into the university president’s office to discuss divestment from South Africa. Most rewarding, he says, was working with students across cultures and races as part of the anti-apartheid movement and movements to fight for educational access and inclusion. "The racism and injustice my people have faced is rooted in the same racism and structural inequalities faced by all people of color," he says. "Our destinies are interconnected." 

Protecting Little Tokyo

Nakano says he wanted a career rooted in the Japanese American community, protecting Little Tokyo and communities like it. He wanted to continue collaborating with other communities of color. While attending UCLA’s Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, he got an internship with LTSC, and stayed. 

As deputy director, he helped develop a small business assistance collaborative and an affordable housing collaborative. Most of the affordable housing LTSC has built was created in partnership with other organizations in communities of color.

"Race and ethnicity is something that’s always there," he says. "Pushing for racial equality is always part of the issues we take up, whether it’s housing or human services."

The pandemic, for example, disparately impacted communities of color, which also saw inequities in vaccine distribution, he says. "Part of what we do is bring that to light, put it on the table, advocate for change and make the change happen ourselves, like organizing community-based vaccine clinics in Little Tokyo to ensure low-income seniors and residents got their shots."

Under Nakono’s leadership, LTSC spun off a development corporation that grew exponentially before being remerged with the organization, recalls Joshua Ishimatsu, director of real estate for LTSC until 2009. 

He says as deputy director, Nakano saw straight lines between problems and solutions. Known for a steady voice and attention to detail, he was occasionally tasked as the person to relate bad fiscal news to employees. Even so, "he had everyone’s respect and appreciation. They all know him as a passionate, caring person."

Nakano became LTSC’s executive director in 2019 after the death of longtime Executive Director Dean Matsubayashi. "It was a hard time for the organization," Nakano says. The pandemic followed.
After years in a behind-the-scenes role, Nakano was now front and center. Emphasis on collaboration remains a part of his daily life. "I try to create teams that can collectively address various issues and questions facing the organization," he says. "I rely on the staff who know what is happening on the ground and how to best move things forward." 

This month, LTSC announced the expansion of a project with Go For Broke, increasing Little Tokyo’s footprint and bringing more housing, commercial space, open space and walkways. Nakano is optimistic about Little Tokyo’s future – and the nation’s, he says. He hopes  significant affordable housing and revitalization packages will pass through Congress, and that the inspiring movement for racial justice over the past year will lead to real change.

And he hopes people of different groups will continue to work together and collaborate for their collective future. "As an activist, I railed against injustice," he says. "At LTSC, we speak out but also work to create justice. 

"The destinies of communities of color are interconnected," he adds. "We absolutely have to work together to fight for resources and work for systemic change."