At first, this was going to be just a quick little post saying there’s an article in The Rafu Shimpo about my song “Evil is a Yellow Face,” from my musical China – The Whole Enchilada, being part of the Japanese American National Museum’s “Marvels & Monsters Unbound,” a showcase of short performances to kick off the new exhibition “Marvels & Monsters: Unmasking Asian Images in U.S. Comics, 1942-1986.”

Then I was going to say how I just wrote a long-ass sentence.

Then I was most likely going to make a joke about Rafu Shimpo being the forgotten Stooge.

But then I looked up Rafu Shimpo, because truth be told I had no idea what The Rafu Shimpo was, and was amazed at what I discovered.

The Rafu Shimpo is a a Japanese-English language newspaper based out of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. It started out in 9103 as a one-page, mimeographed newspaper. The paper is 110-years old. Shut the front page! Things were going along swimmingly for the paper, but once the U.S entered World War II, the U.S. government forced the Rafu Shimpo to close its doors. Oh that pesky Executive Order 9066.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941, H. T. Komai (The paper’s manager) was among the Japanese-American community leaders arrested and interned by the FBI. Akira Komai kept the paper running until April, 1942, when it closed as Japanese-Americans were being sent off to relocation camps across the West.

The paper was revived after the war, thanks to Akira Komai’s foresight and the loyalty of his employees. Komai had arranged for the plant’s rent to be paid during the war and hid the Japanese type under the floorboards. When he was refused loans at local banks, three employees loaned him $1,500. The first postwar issue was published on Jan. 1, 1946.

Today the newspaper, along with nearly every other newspaper in the world, is suffering from dwindling readership. But it’s still alive and kicking, 110-years later. I hope the same can be said of me when I’m 110.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, head on down to the Japanese American National Museum to see Marvels & Monsters Unbound. And while you’re there, go see the newly opened exhibit: Go For Broke: Japanese American Soldiers Fighting on Two Fronts. The exhibit chronicles the history of Japanese American Nisei soldiers from the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and Military Intelligence Service who served during World War II to prove their loyalty to the nation that had disowned them.