History

Kaji & Associates, founded in 1984 by Jonathan Kaji, started with the management and leasing of two family-owned warehouse properties, located in Little Tokyo and the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles. Since then, our business activities have expanded across a variety of real estate asset classes, including commercial retail; multi-family residential; industrial warehouse, tenant representation; and advisory services from start-ups to established companies.

Mr. Kaji's family has been in California for more than 100 years and has had a long history of real estate ownership combined with community activism. Dr. Kikuwo Tashiro, Mr. Kaji's maternal grandfather, was the prevailing plaintiff in Tashiro v. Jordan (1927), a United States Supreme Court decision.  The State of California had passed a series of discriminatory laws targeting Japanese in California which prevented land ownership. Dr. Tashiro and his fellow medical doctors wanted to form a corporation  and build the Japanese Hospital of Los Angeles but were stopped from incorporating by the State of California Secretary of State, citing that Japanese could not own land.  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Commercial Treaty between the United States and Japan allowed by the formation of businesses by Japanese citizens, and forced the State of California to authorize the articles of incorporation.

Mr. Kaji's father, Bruce Kaji, was one of the founders of the Little Tokyo Redevelopment Association, as a response to the City of Los Angeles efforts to erase the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles by way of eminent domain actions. Bruce was also a founder of Merit Savings Bank, headquartered in Little Tokyo, which provided thousands of home loans to individual homeowners in the Japanese American community and was a major employer in the community. Bruce Kaji served as the Founding President of the Japanese American National Museum (JANM), located in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. JANM has been internationally-recognized as the repository of the Japanese American experience, from the early days of immigration to American, the forced expulsion by the Federal government from the Western United States during World War Two, and the communities successful efforts to obtain redress and an official apology for the travesty of the Evacuation.