Bill Watanabe
Founding Executive Director, Little Tokyo Service Center
"It has been a wonderful privilege to be able to serve the people in this historic cultural neighborhood called Little Tokyo and embark on a journey to establish a community resource such as the Little Tokyo Service Center, which has made many broad impacts to help people in need. What a joy it has been to work with colleagues in community service to help build new entities and break down old barriers so that the quality of life can be improved for those who have gone without. Life doesn't get any better than that!"
Biography
Bill Watanabe’s career, community, and humanitarian accomplishments are legion. He is best known as the founding executive director of the Little Tokyo Service Center, serving culturally diverse communities in central Los Angeles with affordable housing help, social services, counseling, childcare, small business support, and more. He is founder of the Little Tokyo Historical Society, helping preserve and promote the cultural and historic resources of this 130-year-old ethnic neighborhood facing the challenges of gentrification. He founded the Asian Pacific Community Fund, co-founded the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (CAPACD), and the Asian for Miracle Marrow Matches (A3M), which has significantly helped to improve the chances of Asian Americans to obtain a life-saving bone-marrow transplant.
He also founded the Asian Pacific Islander Americans for Historic Preservation (APIAHiP), which organized the first-ever national Asian American conference on historic preservation, which has continued biennially since 2010. As co-founder of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST), Watanabe is dedicated to assisting those who have been trafficked to this country and to advocate for policies to eliminate this exploitative practice. And he is co-founder of the Asian Pacific Counseling & Treatment Center (APCTC), the largest API counseling program in the nation, providing counseling in many different Asian languages and dialects—breaking the barrier in Los Angeles County, which previously had not offered such counseling.
Photo Credits
Little Tokyo Historical Society
“11-11-06-FarEastCafe-LittleTokyo“ by Bobak Ha'Eri, used via CC BY-SA 2.5
