Rafu Shimpo Digital Archive (TRIAL)

Access via Library Catalogue.
Trial ends: 16th May 2024.
Archive coverage: 1914-1942, 1946-current
The Rafu Shimpo (羅府新報, L.A. Japanese Daily News) is the longest-running Japanese American newspaper in the United States. The paper began in 1903 supporting the small but growing Japanese community in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles, California. By the 1940s it was the most widely circulated paper in the region and included a weekly English section for second generation Japanese Americans. With the onset of World War II, the paper was forced to cease publication after its publisher, H. Toyosaku Komai, and most of the Komai family were arrested and interned for the duration of the war. The Rafu Shimpo quickly revived publication after the war and capitalized on being the first Japanese American newspaper to resume publication in January of 1946. The newspaper outlasted all its local competitors and grew to become the most prominent and preeminent Japanese American publication in the United States.

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