Sonoma County JACL General Meeting

JACL General Meeting

Saturday, November 9, 2024
11 am – 2 pm

Free & open to the public
Potluck Lunch – bring a dish to share.

Enmanji Memorial Hall
1200 Gravenstein Hwy South, Sebastopol

Program

• Screening of the documentary “Benkyodo: The Last Manju Shop in J-Town”
• Hands-on kuri manju making
• Try assorted manju and mochi for dessert
• Potluck lunch (cold dish or microwave reheatable)
• JACL will contribute Takikomi Gohan and Cucumber Wakame Salad

Benkyodo was a much loved Japanese American confectionery with a 115 year history. This is a 2023 short documentary directed by Akira Boch and Tadashi Nakamura. It captures the last 6 months of San Francisco Japantown’s first and last traditional Japanese American confectionery.

Synopsis

Ricky and Bobby Okamura, the current owners of Benkyodo mochi shop, make a difficult decision to close their family business. The Japanese pastry shop, a landmark for Japanese Americans and Asian Americans in the Bay Area, is one of two mochi shops currently open in the San Francisco Bay Area. Currently 115 years old, the business has endured the anti-Asian laws of the early 20th century, Japanese incarceration, redevelopment of the 1960s, and San Francisco’s notoriously high costs of living. The unsurmountable economic pressure, coupled with the brothers’ desire to preserve their Japanese heritage, family business, and community space, create an age-old conflict many children of diaspora face—preserving their culture or submitting to the economic forces of racial capitalism.

News video

115-Year Mochi Shop Benkyodo Closes in SF Japantown 4/1/22 – https://youtu.be/z9ikmN4n_f8?feature=shared

Inquiries

info@sonomacountyjacl.org or call (707) 861-3487.

The following is a screen capture of Benkyodo’s website with an announcement of their closing on March 31, 2022.