Nisei Week Japanese Festival 2026 — Little Tokyo, Los Angeles

“The oldest Asian-American festival in the United States — running…”

It began as a business scheme — get shoppers back into Little Tokyo during the Depression — and it became the oldest Asian-American festival in the country. Ninety years on, the neighborhood still takes First Street for itself every August, a sentence that lands harder once you know what happened in between.

Ten days of it: ondo in the street, taiko you feel through the pavement, ikebana, martial arts demonstrations, food, and the Queen Program that has run since the 1930s. The parade is the part that stops traffic. The week around it is why the community shows up. Most people who have lived in Los Angeles their whole lives have never been once, and the ones who go once do not miss it again.

Most of it is free, in and around Little Tokyo, with the schedule at the Nisei Week Foundation.

Send it to the friend who has lived here for years and still has never gone.