In the frantic final month before the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) pavilion closed for an extended renovation, the museum rushed to stage an exhibition of Mario Reyes’ work.
For years, Mario had been the photo editor of the Rafu Shimpo, the Los Angeles Japanese American daily newspaper. Now, his health was failing. In late September, he summoned me and his longtime friend Darlene Kuba to his Boyle Heights home. There, surrounded by images he’d taken over the decades, his smoky gray cat Baby by his side, he told us he had been diagnosed with cancer and had decided not to seek aggressive treatment.
Mario had long dreamed of his own show at JANM—so a group of us, led by filmmaker Steve Nagano, banded together to make it happen in the short time we had left.
When Mario conceived this exhibition, he insisted on calling it “Obras de Luz”— works of light. The Spanish phrase isn’t easy for a mostly Japanese American audience to understand, but Mario had been adamant. I believe he chose that title because the 48 photographs that went on view on December 6, 2024, just seven weeks before Mario’s death in January, illuminate his place in, and his perspective on, a community he spent the majority of his life documenting as both an outsider (soto) and an insider (uchi).
Mario lived his life in two cultures, Mexican American and Japanese American. He was born on January 19, 1956, in Mexico City, the oldest of four children. Soon after, his family moved to the U.S., and he grew up in East L.A., learning to speak English from his first-grade teacher at Riggin Elementary, who was Japanese American. Mario found the Rafu when he was a teenager, beginning in the mail room and eventually working his way up to become the paper’s main photographer, overseeing the creation of its dark room, and mentoring generations of reporters and photographers.
Emotion doesn’t come easily in Japanese culture. We are taught gaman (perseverance) and shikata ga nai (it can’t be helped). We tend to consider expressing too much a sign of weakness. But Mario was unafraid to push forward, and his photos reflect that. He encouraged all of us at Rafu to be more assertive in our coverage. I had the privilege to work alongside Mario as his editor for more than 20 years. I remember whenever I went on assignments by myself, he would say, “Push in a little closer, get your shot.”
“This was Toshiro Mifune! This is John Wayne Japanese style,” Mario Reyes said, recounting his excitement upon learning that he’d be photographing the actor (pictured).
A Rafu Shimpo subscriber in 1997.
Nisei Week choreographers Mitsusa Bando, Fujima Kansuma, and Hanayagi Tokuyae at the 50th anniversary of Nisei Week in 1990. “I saw City Hall in the background, the lighting was good,” Reyes said.
The Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, photo published in the Rafu Shimpo on August 14, 1995. “I was intrigued by how they sat them in the courtroom. This was at JANM. I follow the resisters quite a bit…they all became my friends,” Reyes said.
Protesters at a City Council meeting in July 2001. “My hand print is also on this,” Reyes said of the shot.
Pitcher Hideo Nomo after he came to the Dodgers in 1995. “I just was shooting with a new lens,” said Reyes.
Memorial Day at Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, photo published in the Rafu Shimpo on May 16, 2008. “I was fascinated by the lens and what I was able to capture,” said Reyes.
A Black Lives Matter demonstration at the Los Angeles Civic Center. “You have Little Tokyo, surrounded by all these other nationalities. It’s not like you can close your eyes to what’s happening in the world,” Reyes said.
Veterans attend a Memorial Day service in 2020. “The staff at Evergreen Cemetery were very accommodating, they brought me out a ladder,” Reyes said.
Rose Ochi and Sue Kunitomi Embrey, who fought to make Manzanar part of the National Park Service, hold plaques of recognition during the Manzanar Guard Tower dedication on September 17, 2005.
Mario always wanted to show as much about life in Little Tokyo as possible. He and his camera were omnipresent: at Nisei Week, at Obon festivals in the summertime, restaurant openings, basketball games, tragedies, trials, and times of tumult, civil unrest, and chaos. Together we covered the funeral of David Seima Aoyama, a Culver City resident and passenger on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11. During the pandemic, we covered the alarming rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. Mario and his life partner Martha Nakagawa, a fearless journalist, regularly covered the Manzanar and Tule Lake pilgrimages, during which travelers thronged to the incarceration camps to commemorate the lives of thousands of Japanese and Japanese Americans who were imprisoned during World War II—and to reckon with history.
Mario always imagined a bigger future for J-Town. He loved Little Tokyo, but he also wanted the Japanese American community to see beyond itself.
Mario often shot with a fish-eye lens, widening the vista to include more people in the frame. A favorite photo was of the Higashi Buddhist Temple Obon in 2009, the image showing a circle of dancers in colorful yukata (summer kimono), illuminated by lanterns encircling them. At first glance, it’s the epitome of joy and celebration. But the subtext is loss. Obon commemorates the passing of our ancestors. We write the names of loved ones who have recently departed on the lanterns.
Mario’s own mother’s name was inscribed on a lantern somewhere in the photo, he told Steve Nagano last November.
Loss weighed on Mario. He hadn’t been the same since Martha’s death in 2023; a fast-moving cancer claimed her at 56. Mario retired from the Rafu the following year. It’s not easy working there, and the old saying among staff was that life gets better once you leave.
Over lunches at Suehiro or a cold beer at Oiwake, we talked about new adventures and opportunities. He was hopeful that the next phase of life would be full of photography and community involvement.
But a stroke in 2023 left him weakened, and then came the cancer. He could no longer carry heavy camera equipment, and he needed assistance walking and getting in and out of cars. Still, I think he was at peace with where he was; he told me he felt he had accomplished nearly everything he wanted to in life.
“This is what it is right now,” Mario said during one of our last lunches together.
Medal of Honor recipients Shizuya Hayashi, George T. Sakato, and Hershey Miyamura at an all-veterans gathering at the New Otani Hotel in Little Tokyo in 2007.
Washington Union High alumni David Sasaki (Class of ’69) holds a photo of his late mother, Hinako Yamagiwa Sasaki (Class of ’42) in 2014. That year, Washington Union issued honorary high school diplomas to Nisei students unjustly imprisoned by the U.S. during World War II.
Since 1934, Nisei Week has boosted Little Tokyo businesses and showcased Japanese and Japanese American culture.
Manzanar Pilgrimage attendees giving out flowers, photo published in the Rafu Shimpo on May 3, 2005.
Nisei Week Queens Reunion at JANM in 2019.
Chibi K: Kids for Kids Fun Run, image published in the Rafu Shimpo on May 18, 2011.
Citizenship ceremony held at the Manzanar National Historic Site in 2017. “This was after the Manzanar Pilgrimage. We heard there was going to be a citizenship ceremony … of all Hispanics. It was good,” said Reyes.
Action shot of Shohei Ohtani, photo published in the Rafu Shimpo on November 20, 2021.
Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition president Nancy Oda at a hearing of the Los Angeles Planning and Land Use Management Committee in 2019. Behind her are coalition board members June Aochi Berk, James Okazaki, and Nancy Hayata.
When he wasn’t well enough to be out in the community, the community came to him. As Mario’s strength waned, friends came to see him at his home, and he was always the gracious host offering bottles of water and snacks.
Mario once estimated that he had taken a million photos. The ones featured in “Obras de Luz” provide a concise, though incomplete, overview of his work, which at its heart reflects the struggles of an immigrant community finding its way in American society. In this way, I think Mario saw his own journey in the photos.
He captured Japanese Americans engaging in civil disobedience to fight for their rights—resisters of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee seated in a line at JANM; Fred and Kathryn Korematsu signing an American flag. He loved the California coastline. In one of his favorite self-portraits, he is nearly invisible, hidden within the twisted roots of a pine tree on the Monterey Peninsula.
And Mario took pictures of L.A. beyond Little Tokyo—a June 2020 protest at the L.A. Civic Center, following the murder of George Floyd. Then-mayor Eric Garcetti is in the crowd, wearing a Dodgers face mask. In the foreground is a sign with the message “Black Lives Matter.”
Mario always imagined a bigger future for J-Town. He loved Little Tokyo, but he also wanted the Japanese American community to see beyond itself. The show is a call for that, too. “You have Little Tokyo, surrounded by all these other nationalities. It’s not like you can close your eyes to what’s happening in the world,” Mario told me in October.
Self portrait.
In the exhibition, directly below the Black Lives Matter photo, is another shot that was important to Mario: a citizenship ceremony held at Manzanar, the new citizens waving American flags.
“We heard there was going to be a graduation of citizenship,” he said, “of all Hispanics. It was good.”
Approximately 150 people said farewell to Mario at a service on February 15 at the SGI-USA El Monte Buddhist Center. A large portrait of Mario, created by fellow Rafu alum Juan Ramos, greeted mourners. The service brought together his two sides: his Japanese and Mexican, his family and his community.
Nieces Erika and Cynthia Reyes shared memories of Tío Mario, who would take them once a year to Disneyland and liked to start napkin fights at the family dinner table. His family took tremendous pride in knowing how much Mario was revered in his adopted Japanese American community.
“He made you feel seen, valued, and cared for,” Steve Nagano said, remembering his friend. I’m still struggling with how to proceed without Mario and his remarkable vision, his fearlessness and his welcoming spirit. Those who knew him, even if only through his photos, miss him and can only hope to continue to share in his legacy and light.
Gwen Muranaka is former senior editor of the Rafu Shimpo. She was recognized in 2023 with a Distinguished Journalist Award by the Society of Professional Journalists, Greater Los Angeles chapter, and was named a 2024 Pioneer by the Nisei Week Foundation.
All photos by Mario Gershom Reyes /Rafu Shimpo, courtesy of Stephen Nagano.
Primary editor: Jackie Mansky | Secondary editor: Eryn Brown
RELATED
What Came After My Father’s Murder
What Came After My Father’s Murder
A Decade Later, a Former State Legislator Is Still Wrangling With Police and the Criminal Justice System
It was the first and only murder in Silver Lake that year. I picked up the phone at our house… Does My Neighborhood Want Me to Drop Out of College?
Does My Neighborhood Want Me to Drop Out of College?
A Student in Watts Asks Why She’s Spent a Decade Choosing Between Survival and Her Degree
Zócalo celebrated its 20th birthday recently! As part of the festivities, we’re publishing reflections and responses that revisit and reimagine… How We Won a Historic Contract for Hotel Workers
How We Won a Historic Contract for Hotel Workers
I Work at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills. My First Strike Was Scary, Empowering, Sad, and Beautiful
I work as a personal concierge at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, one of the most luxurious hotels in the…