Saturday, January 15, 2000: A beautiful day for a celebration of community involvement and togetherness at the Aloha Grocery store in Los Angeles, California. Aloha Grocery was the site of a mural unveiling to its diverse community, which welcomed everyone with a strong aloha spirit.

Aloha Grocery located at the corner of Centinela and Gilmore Avenue was hard to miss Saturday morning with the large mural painted on the wall of the store. The mural entitled “Aloha to the Neighborhood” stretched 75 feet by 11 feet full of rich colors and images of people and history. The mural took 115 volunteers ranging from 3 to 80 years of age 1000 hours to complete.

The mural depicts the owners Hiroshi and Alice Uyehara. A picture of a little girl representing our future. Faces of different races adorn the mural showing the multi-ethnicity of the community. A woman working on a sewing machine represents the hardworking seamstresses and garment workers. A man mowing lawns in the mural, who is also a friend of the store owners, represent the many gardeners and landscapers working hard to make a living. Gay and lesbian pride is represented by the large colorful rainbow in the mural. The barbed wire is a reminder of the internment of the Japanese Americans during WW2. Tents at the right of the mural are of Japanese American resettlement camps. Last but not least the fruits and vegetables that Aloha Grocery has provided for the community for the last 44 years.

The celebration of the mural began with the Venice Koshin Taiko group. There were a couple of singers (Jules Ino, Visiting Violette) and two storytellers (Paulina Sahagun, Emily Porcincula Lawsin). Nobuko Miyamoto blessed and dedicated the mural in which we held hands. Hiroshi and Alice Uyehara the founders of Aloha Grocery were on hand for the celebration. Their son Wayne and his wife June spoke about their hard work and commitment to the community. The Uyehara family provided food for everyone to try during intermission.

Permission to publish this essay granted by Steve Lucero, a student in Glenn Omatsu’s Sociology 41 class at Pasadena City College.