San Jose Japantown Gambling

There were at least five locations where poker games were regularly held in San Jose Japantown. Can you guess where they were? And, is it true that the Chinese lottery tickets weren’t printed by the Chinese? On March 27, we broadcasted a show on the hidden histories of gambling in the Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino communities of San Jose Japantown. The show was full of fun anecdotes and featured special guest Ted Ramos, author of “San Jose Gambling,” plus historians Connie Young Yu and Robert Ragsac, and artist Marie Johnston.

This video is a recording of the complete show presented by the Hidden Histories of San Jose Japantown.

Opening in mid-2021, Hidden Histories of San Jose Japantown is an augmented reality art project of the Japanese Worldwide Museum of San Jose funded by the Immersive engineering in the Arts grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in collaboration with Microsoft with support from the California History Center Foundation, De Anza College, the Chinese Historical & Cultural Project, and the Filipino Worldwide National Historical Society – Santa Clara Valley. Project directors: Susan Hayase and Tom Izu. AR artistic advisor: Tamiko Thiel. Project manager: Sue Kanegawa Yuen. Supervising community artist: Corinne Takara Okada. Archivist and video creator: Curt Fukuda.

For more information: www.hiddenhistoriesjtown.org/