Japanese YWCA / Issei Women's Building

The organisation began in 1912, formed by Issei women excluded from the segregated YWCA. Because the Alien Land Law barred Asian property ownership, the San Francisco YWCA purchased and held the property in trust. The building closed in 1942 under Executive Order 9066. The American Friends Service Committee leased it from 1943, the Congress of Racial Equality was headquartered there from 1943, and the Mattachine Society held a convention there in 1954. Nihonmachi Little Friends has rented the building since 1985 and bought it in 2002, after a dispute over its sale that began in 1996.