Rafu Shimpo

Little Tokyo in California

The Rafu Shimpo (羅府新報, L.A. Japanese Daily News) is the preeminent 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. The Rafu Shimpo rests squarely at the scholarly intersection of Japanese history and the Japanese American émigré community ─ especially in California, with its unique coverage of news, community history, and announcements of births, marriages, and deaths. Scholars of Japanese history and émigré communities will find this to be a valuable source for research with full search capabilities. Media and literary scholars will appreciate the rich archival history of the paper, with full high-quality page images (including photos, graphics and advertisements) from every issue available.

Access over 100 years of Japanese American news

The Rafu Shimpo digital archive contains all obtainable published issues from 1914 to 2019, with an additional year’s worth of content added on an annual basis. The archive is a one-time purchase that includes an institutional subscription to the newspaper’s website for full access to current issues. The Rafu Shimpo digital archive offers scholars the most comprehensive collection available for this title, and features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and 100% searchable text. Users may switch the interface to display in Japanese or English, and there is an option for crowd-sourced text correction in the rendered text.

Information

Features

● Archive: 1914-2019

● Language: Japanese and English

● Format: PDF, page-based

● Producer: East View Information Services

● Sole Agent: United Digital Publications