In May 2023, the Japanese American Citizens League’s Northern California District Youth Board convened the leaders of Nikkei youth organizations at a summit in San Francisco’s Japantown with the goal of connecting the area’s Nikkei youth groups, which have long lacked a network to link them together.

The summit produced the idea of the Japanese American Youth Alliance, a coalition aimed at fostering bonds among Nikkei youth through social, cultural and professional avenues. One year on from its conception, the alliance is gearing up for a new group of college student officers (JAYA leadership) to take over the reins for the coming academic year.

Getting the alliance off the ground, however, was no simple task. Initially, a small group of students contacted as many organizations as possible and created an Instagram page to build name recognition. Soon, JAYA had 15 participating organizations, including the Nikkei Student Unions from the University of California, Berkeley and UC Davis, and an officer board. In December 2023, JAYA hosted its first convention at the Japanese Community Youth Council in San Francisco’s Japantown, which 60 Nikkei youth from all over Northern California attended, according to the organization’s first chair and UC Berkeley NSU member, Devon Akiyama.

“We did a scavenger hunt through Japantown. We had really good attendance and that was just kind of a good first introduction to kind of tell people like hey, we exist, this is what we’re doing,” Akiyama said.

In addition to the annual convention and monthly general meetings on Zoom, JAYA also holds events, such as the year-end undokai and guest speaker panels. Members modeled the organization after the Intercollegiate Nikkei Council, through which Nikkei organizations at Southern California universities have fostered inter-collegiate ties since 2017. However, JAYA is not solely a collegiate organization, as social co-chair KC Mukai emphasized.

“I think something that’s unique to us… is that we engage with young adults, so not just (on the) collegiate level, but also people that are maybe slightly older, just to help bridge that gap between college level and young adult. Because I think sometimes people leave the NSU and they’re like, ‘OK, what now?’ So I think we show that there’s many other opportunities to stay involved in the Japanese American community that extend beyond those college organizations,” Mukai said.

While social events and professional opportunities are a major draw of joining JAYA, the organization is also keen to give back to the broader Nikkei community by bringing young people into San Jose and San Francisco’s Japantowns. In the spring, members volunteered at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival and at the Bay Area Day of Remembrance, and on the morning of the Day of Remembrance, JAYA hosted youth at JCYC to discuss the Japanese American incarceration experience.

“There was a group of high schoolers in the San Francisco area and (JAYA) taught them about the history of Executive Order 9066 and the Day of Remembrance, and then we also connected that to modern day issues with Palestine and Israel,” Akiyama said.

While youth previously tried to form a coalition of young Nikkei people in Northern California, sustaining the effort proved challenging. Ryan Kimura, the director of programs at JCYC, mentioned an organization similar to JAYA that he helped launch as a Nikkei Community Intern in 2003. Called the Japanese American Youth Network, it was discontinued after one meeting, but drawing on these lessons from the past, he has given support and guidance to JAYA’s founding members from the beginning.

“I just kind of helped to facilitate the process with them, of like, understanding, ‘What is it that we’re really hoping to get out of this?’ And I think that is something that may have been missing…back in 2003,” he said. “JAYA has been able to really kind of nail down, like, ‘We want to make sure that, you know, these NSUs and different clubs are connected, able to support one another, sharing resources and sharing all the different events.’”

One such shared event that JAYA officers are currently working to organize is a pilgrimage to Manzanar in the spring of 2025. As the academic year begins, the alliance will resume meeting monthly again. According to JAYA’s first treasurer Emily Yoshii, the goal for this year is to expand JAYA’s membership base to include people from more regions in Northern California.

“We call ourselves an alliance of different organizations, but also want to highlight that if you just want to meet new people, you have no affiliation with any organization, you don’t know where to start, we’d love to have you,” Yoshii said.

For more information about JAYA, visit: https://www.instagram.com/norcal.jaya/.