About Japanese American Citizens League Venice-West Los Angeles Chapter
Serving the West LA and Venice/Culver area to fulfill the JACL mission to secure and maintain the civil rights of Americans of Japanese ancestry and all others, and promote and preserve the cultural values, heritage and legacy of the Japanese American community.
On March 7, 1936, the first Japanese American Citizens League chapter in the west area of Los Angeles was established. The chapter served West Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Venice and was called the Bay District JACL Chapter under the leadership of its first president Frank Mitzusawa.
As a tri-city chapter, it did not grow much beyond thirty members. Consequently, Joe Masaoka, George Inagaki and Henry Fukuhara met to formulate a plan to strengthen JACL in the Santa Monica Bay area. Their plan to decentralize the Bay District Chapter into three chapters- Santa Monica, Venice, and West Los Angeles- was immediately successful. The chapters would become some of the most active chapters in the Pacific Southwest district of the JACL.
The Venice-West LA JACL chapter was formed in 2016 as a result of the merger between the Venice-Culver and West LA chapters. Today we continue the work of JACL and serve our community with the help of our partners: Kizuna, Venice Japanese Community Center, VJCC Young Adult Club, Camp Musubi, UCLA Nikkei Student Union, Nisei Week and the West LA Buddhist Temple.
