I first learned about the Atomic Cafe in 2013 while working at the Little Tokyo Service Center in J-Town/Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. This sparked a nearly 7-year journey to get to this point - the world premiere of our mini-documentary ATOMIC CAFE: The Noisiest Corner in J-Town at Visual Communication's LA Asian Pacific Film Festival 2020.
As a hapa Japanese American, as a native Angeleno (born on stolen Tongva land), as someone who loves the Little Tokyo/J-Town neighborhood deeply, as a lover of music, as an advocate for community control by ethnic neighborhoods - both of our physical spaces and places, as well as of our stories, there is so much to celebrate about the Atomic Cafe and its people (most especially, Atomic Nancy Sekizawa). I hope you will join in this celebration Sunday September 27 at 2pm for a viewing of our documentary and a panel discussion with Nancy, her daughter Zen, and Directors Tad Nakamura and Akira Boch.
You can also revisit past articles on the Atomic Cafe and the beginnings of this documentary project from the LA Times, KPCC, KCET, Curbed LA, and LA Weekly.
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