2023 CANE's 50th Anniversary Celebration! Reunite with Friends, Celebrate Our Accomplishments & Look to the Future of Japantown with UsNEW

Cane 50th Anniversary - Celebrating community & activism.  Please join former CANE members, supporters, past residents and small business people in this celebration. “Community and Activism” will be the theme - a theme of reflection and a call for our community to build Activism beyond dialogue and forge actions to resolve immediate priorities such as addressing external decision-makers, lack of affordable housing/community spaces and developing our future leaders. We'll feature personal reflections, a photo exhibit and a new documentary.

Those working for Nihonmachi's future may find this celebration and our story relevant.

Date
August 19, 2023

Schedule
Doors Open: 1:30 pm
Program at 2 pm

Tickets

Location
JCCCNC, 1840 Sutter Street, San Francisco

History
In February of 1973, community residents, small businesses and supporters came together to form the Committee Against Nihonmachi Eviction (CANE). CANE fought the evictions of residents and small businesses in San Francisco's historic Japantown. More than 300 people from the community joined CANE in its first year while thousands across the city and America threw in their support feeling the same bulldozers destroying their communities.

Though redevelopment was in its last stages, CANE, an all-volunteer organization, fought to preserve the the remaining housing and small business spaces from 1973 through the early 1980s.

CANE, through daily tenant organizing, public rallies, wide media coverage and support from inside and outside J-town, fought for the remaining residents and small businesses to retain their rightful place in Nihonmachi. We held the Redevelopment Agency to its obligations for affordable replacement housing, business space and relocation benefits. In the end, CANE demanded the preservation of Nihonmachi for the generations that would follow.

"By the mid-1960s, the devastation of the once vibrant neighborhood sent shock waves through former residents and beyond."

- SF Planning Dept., 2019

About CANE
The CANE 50th Anniversary Planning Committee formed in January 2021, to organize the 50th Anniversary event in 2023; publish the CANE Story from the perspective of those involved; and to collect and archive CANE documents and memorabilia.