The Brief

In 1972, something unheard of happened on national television. An Asian American singer-songwriter duo was invited to perform on the widely-watched The Mike Douglas Show by guest hosts John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

“They’re beautiful singers,” Lennon said in his introduction. “And they have a story to tell.”

Cut to Nobuko Miyamoto and Chris Iijima sitting on stools on a dark stage.

“Usually people know very little about Asians, and this is a song about our movement, our people’s plight in America,” Miyamoto said, as Iijima strummed the opening chords to “We Are The Children.”

We are the children of the migrant worker. We are the offspring of the concentration camp.

 Sons and daughters of the railroad builder who leave their stamp on America.

Behind the scenes, Miyamoto had battled to perform that song over the protests of a show producer, who worried it would be too subversive for housewives in the midwest, and the conciliatory overtures of Lennon, who asked them to soften the lyrics.

 Watching war movies with the next door neighbor. Secretly rooting for the other side.

Miyamoto’s lifelong quest to tell Asian American stories is chronicled in a documentary film premiering Saturday in Los Angeles at the VC Film Festival: Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song in Movement.

The film, directed by Quyên Nguyen-Le and Tadashi Nakamura, chronicles Miyamoto’s creative journey as a third-generation Japanese American born in Los Angeles at the start of World War II to her run as a performer on Broadway and in films such as West Side Story.

She walked away from it all to focus her energies on the Asian American movement that emerged in the late 1960s.

With Iijima and another activist, Charlie Chin, Miyamoto recorded A Grain of Sand, an album with songs written with an Asian American consciousness like “We Are The Children” that has earned it the title of being one of the first “Asian American” albums.

In the years since, Miyamoto has devoted herself to making community art in L.A. with her multicultural arts organization Great Leap. The group’s collaborations with other artists of color across the city have birthed theater productions, music videos, workshops and the FandangObon festival, which fuses Mexican, Japanese and West African musical traditions.

Nobuko Miyamoto leads dancers outside the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo for the 2014 FangdanObon festival.

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Courtesy Mike Murase

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"A lot of people see what I did with West Side Story," et cetera, as a pinnacle, and I don't see that," Miyamoto said. "The major part of my life and my work and my dedication has been in the community. That's what I'm proudest of."

Her path to Hollywood

After World War II broke out, Miyamoto’s family was detained with other Japanese Americans at the Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia.

Miyamoto, then a toddler, slept in a horse stall with her family for several months before her father volunteered to harvest sugar beets in Montana as part of the war effort. Workers lived in barracks. Because her dad had a family, they lived in a cabin.

Nobuko Miyamoto is flanked by both parents in a 1945 photo with relatives.

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Courtesy Harry Hayashida

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The family moved to Idaho then Utah before making it back to L.A. It was in Boyle Heights where Miyamoto discovered ballet.

“Dance gave me a sense of rootedness because I felt I had some control over my body and what my place was in the world,” Miyamoto said.

Nobuko Miyamoto, pictured here at age 5 or 6, had discovered her love of dancing and movement at a young age.

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Courtesy Harry Hayashida

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She excelled and Hollywood casting directors took notice. Starting in her teen years, she was booking roles in film productions of The King and I and later, West Side Story, in which she played Francisca, one of the “Shark Girls.”

But the high from mainstream success quickly wore off. Miyamoto recalls being on Broadway performing in a 1958 hit production of the Flower Drum Song about a family from San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Nobuko Miyamoto chronicles her seven decades of performing in her memoir "Not Yo' Butterfly."

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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“I felt really uncomfortable and I was confused,” Miyamoto said. “What am I feeling? And later I thought about it, and I realized, 'Oh, we're chop suey. We're Chinese food for white people.' And that started me thinking what, how can we tell our own stories?”

An Asian American album

Miyamoto, who had traveled to New York in the 1960s to help a friend make a film about the Black Panthers, drew inspiration from the Black Power movement. And she found solidarity with Asian Americans of all ethnicities, guided by civil rights leaders such as Yuri Kochiyama.

They protested the Vietnam War — “the third war that I had seen the U.S. killing people who looked like me” — and fought to have Asian American history taught in college.

“In numbers we weren’t that many but together we had more of a force,” Miyamoto said.

In New York, Nobuko Miyamoto wrote and performed with fellow activist Chris Iijima.

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Courtesy Maximo Colon

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Miyamoto teamed up with N.Y.-based activists Iijima and Chin to write folk songs with a defiantly Asian American perspective, and toured the country like troubadours, playing to cities with concentrations of Asian Americans such as L.A., Oakland, Chicago, Boston.

“They made music to help inspire the people they were working with,” said Sojin Kim, a curator at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. "It was so deeply ingrained in this practice of community.”

In 1973, the trio recorded A Grain of Sand in New York with Paredon Records. It’s since been added to the Smithsonian’s folk catalog.

Writer and activist Phil Tajitsu Nash would later describe the album as “the soundtrack for the political and personal awareness taking place in their lives.”

Now an elder

Not only after the release of A Grain of Sand, Miyamoto moved back to L.A. where she raised her son, Kamau, as a single parent and founded her arts organization Great Leap.

Fifty-some years later, Miyamoto hasn’t stopped telling stories. In the last several years, she’s published a memoir "Not ‘Yo Butterfly" and released an album of new and old songs through Smithsonian’s Folkway called "120,000 Stories," referring to the number of those incarcerated during World War II because of their Japanese heritage.

Residing in Mid-City with her filmmaker husband Tarabu Betserai Kirkland, she continues to make visual art like through this video she filmed during the pandemic:

And she serves as a mentor and inspiration to newer artists like the Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song in Movement filmmakers who marveled at her commitment and stamina as they pored over archival footage of her and interviewed her many collaborators.

“As an artist myself, I'm always wondering, what can art do, if anything, for society, right?" Nguyen-Le knew said. “Nobuko gives us sort of a map for what it can do and how she's done it over decades of her life.”

Nakamura, whose filmmaker parents were part of the Asian American movement with Miyamoto, grew up knowing her as one of his “aunties.” He took dance workshops that she gave at L.A.'s Senshin Buddhist Temple, where Miyamoto would often bring her son as she taught.

Nobuko Miyamoto with her son, Kamau Ayubbi.

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Courtesy Nobuko Miyamoto

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But now Nakamura understands Miyamoto the artist and it's only reaffirmed his belief in making films that are unapologetically for Asian Americans.

“We know that mainstream media, mainstream education, usually will not include our stories as Asian Americans or if they do, they usually get it wrong,” said Nakamura, who also made a film about Iijima after he died in 2005 called A Song for Ourselves. “So we take inspiration from artists like Nobuko. We're going to have to do it ourselves because no one else will. We have to really literally fight for our own storytelling.”

Quyên Nguyen-Le and Tadashi Nakamura co-directed Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song in Movement.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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Miyamoto has been working on a new recording of We Are The Children with producer Chucky Kim and singers Treya Lam and Taiyo Na.

The timbre of her voice is different. Her collaborators are from another generation. But her fight for recognition and justice is unchanged.

“I’m here as an elder now to say, ‘Remember, there was an Asian American movement,'” Miyamoto said. “We did stand up. We marched in the streets. We fought for what we wanted. And it's still happening.”

A nonprofit watchdog group is asking the State Bar of California to investigate two assistant U.S. attorneys who handle immigration cases. That push comes as a number of state bar agencies, including California’s, argue the federal government is attempting to shield its lawyers from accountability.

The Legal Accountability Center on Thursday sent two letters to the State Bar of California alleging Christopher Jones, in California’s Central District, and Jonathan Yu, in the Eastern District, violated rules that govern the conduct of lawyers practicing law in the state.

According to those letters, Jones violated professional conduct rules in the prosecution of a man accused of assaulting a federal officer. The Department of Justice charged the man, who had been shot by an ICE officer, in a case that a judge later dismissed with prejudice while finding the federal government violated the man’s rights to due process.

Another letter accuses Yu of missing several deadlines while handling an immigration case against a man who’d been detained after failing to appear on a traffic ticket. A federal judge levied sanctions against Yu for his repeated violations of court orders.

The State Bar has the power to investigate attorneys licensed in California and impose disciplinary actions if violations are found. More serious penalties such as disbarment and suspending a license need approval by the California Supreme Court.

The California State Bar said in an emailed statement that it cannot disclose pending complaints or investigations into attorneys, and that it doesn’t track disciplinary actions against federal prosecutors, specifically.

The U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Eastern and Central districts have not yet responded to requests for comment.

Michael Teter, the executive director of the Legal Accountability Center, said these allegations “represent a greater concern, which is the administration’s disregard for the rule of law.”

“When these lawyers are representing the administration and the government, they are doing so in a way that disregards the rules of procedure, the rules of evidence,” Teter said. “And in this instance, they weren't concerned with court orders and what courts were directing them to do with regards to the people whose lives they were trying to upend.”

Federal officials want protection from state discipline

In March, the federal government issued a proposed rule preventing current or former DOJ lawyers from participating in investigations initiated by state bar authorities until after the department reviews the allegations. The rule says the department “shall request” the state bar disciplinary authority to suspend any investigations until the department has finished its review.

Justice Department officials say in the March 2026 filing that they need the new rule because “over the past several years, political activists have weaponized the bar complaint and investigation process.” While the proposed rule acknowledges that attorneys practicing in states must meet individual states’ ethics standards, it says enforcement of those standards for federal attorneys should fall on the DOJ. Otherwise, the filing states: “This unprecedented weaponization of the State bar complaint process risks chilling the zealous advocacy by Department attorneys on behalf of the United States, its agencies, and its officers.”

The State Bar of California opposes this proposed rule, arguing in public comments that it is “unprecedented, unnecessary, inappropriate, and lacks both congressional and constitutional authority.” Federal lawyers are subject to the rules of conduct wherever they are licensed to practice, the bar wrote, and the order would “improperly intrude on the State Bar’s authority to regulate, investigate, and pursue discipline for all attorneys licensed or otherwise authorized to practice in California.” The American Bar Association also opposes the rule, as do several legal organizations including the Utah State Bar, the National Organization of Bar Counsel and a coalition of 22 state attorneys general.

What the letters say about the contested prosecutions

Jones, who was admitted to the California bar in 2022, handled the prosecution of Carlitos Ricardo Parias.

Parias, who streamed ICE arrests on social media as Richard LA, was shot by an ICE officer in South L.A. during a confrontation on Oct. 21, 2025. He’s also the man who reported finding worms in the drinking water at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and is seen in a widely circulated video.

While Parias was recovering from the gunshot wound to the left arm, the U.S. Attorney’s office filed a criminal complaint accusing him of assaulting a federal officer with his car, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Olguin dismissed the charges against Parias last December, citing two key reasons in his decision:

• The government denied Parias access to legal counsel while he was detained at Adelanto.
• The government failed to provide the defense with key evidence, including exculpatory body camera footage, that would help Parias’ defense until court-ordered deadlines had passed.
  

The U.S. Attorney’s office challenged that decision in an appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In its request for a State Bar investigation into Jones’ handling of the case, the Legal Accountability Center called the prosecution “a sham.”

The request, addressed to the California bar’s Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona, argues Jones violated California’s rules for lawyer conduct in three ways: Jones prosecuted an assault charge against Parias that was not supported by probable cause, he failed to correct an allegedly false statement by a Homeland Security investigations special agent that was included in the initial complaint against Parias, and he failed to disclose evidence to the defense.

Details on the attorneys named in the complaints

Yu, who was admitted to the California bar in 2013, handled the immigration case against Eblis Alexander Yanez Tovar.

Tovar was pulled over on Feb. 26, 2026 for failing to appear in court for a traffic ticket and sent to a detention center in Kern County, California.

On April 2, the court ordered his release, finding that his due process rights were violated because he was detained without a notice or hearing. The court ordered Yu to file paperwork showing Tovar was released and that his documents, a passport and license, were returned to him. The April 6 deadline to comply with that order came and went without Yu filing those documents.

Without his passport or license, Tovar’s attorney argued he was “essentially stranded” in Kern County while asking the court to enforce its deadlines.

Yu missed another deadline on April 10, according to the request, so the court sanctioned him $250.

Eric Grant, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, asked the court to reconsider the penalty and to impose the sanction on his office generally, or Grant specifically.

Yu was not at fault for missing the deadlines, Grant said, because of the extraordinary workload in the U.S. Attorney’s office in the face of a wave of habeas corpus petitions from people challenging the legality of their detention.

“The strain of the system is not keeping up with the overwhelming burden,” Grant wrote, while arguing that the entire U.S. Attorney’s office bears responsibility for missing the deadline.

Troy Nunley, the Chief United States District Judge for the Eastern District of California, granted that request, although the judge noted that Yu missed multiple deadlines in the case.

“Even in the face of significant workload pressures, counsel has an obligation to ensure that court directives are timely and fully observed,” Nunley’s response said. “Compliance with court orders is not optional and must be prioritized.”

The Legal Accountability Center wrote in its letter seeking the State Bar investigation that Yu’s caseload “does not absolve him of his responsibilities to the court” and to Tovar. They also cite previous State Bar cases that have determined a heavy caseload does not excuse or mitigate an attorney's obligations to follow the court orders.

Teter told LAist that the volume of habeas corpus petitions reflects the government’s policy of holding more people in detention while their immigration cases unfolds. More often than not, judges are siding with the petitioners who claim their detention is illegal.

“It's not a defense to say, ‘I have so many cases that I just couldn't keep up with the court orders that required me to release somebody or release their passport and documents,’” Teter said “That's not an excuse.’”

“If the Department of Justice, therefore, can't handle the number of habeas petitions being filed without having lawyers disregard court orders and their ethical obligations,” he said, “then it's incumbent upon the administration to shift their policy and tactics so that they're not holding these people illegally.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

The scene on the 6th Street Bridge on Sunday was hard to miss: Crowds of young people with minibikes were corralled along the bridge, some with their hands zip-tied behind their backs.

More than 70 people were cited, and dozens of minibikes were impounded during a Los Angeles Police Department enforcement operation targeting “illegal motorized mini-bike activity.” Among those cited were youth as young as 13 years old, as well as parents who were riding with their children, according to news reports.

The LAPD said the motorized minibikes were unauthorized and were blocking the bridge, performing donuts and wheelies and riding on the wrong side of the roadway.

To the LAPD, the show of force was necessary, saying pocket bikes have low visibility, high instability and no required safety equipment. “One wrong move can lead to catastrophic injury,” the LAPD said.

But others, including parents, were taken aback by the enforcement operation.

“As long as we ride together with them as a parent, it shouldn’t be a crime, and it shouldn’t be illegal for my daughter to be riding right next to her dad, riding and enjoying her minibike,” one parent told ABC 7 Eyewitness News.

Here’s what the law says about riding a minibike on L.A. streets:

What are minibikes and pocket bikes?

The California Highway Patrol defines pocket bikes as two-wheeled motorized devices with a seat or a saddle. They are not designed or manufactured for highway use, according to the CHP website.

Minibikes, while similar to pocket bikes, typically feature open-tube steel frames, upright seating, larger wheels and more engine power, delivering speeds of nearly 30 miles per hour. With modifications, minibikes can approach speeds of 70 miles per hour according to an LA City Council motion.

The terms “pocket bikes” and “minibike” are sometimes used interchangeably by law enforcement. The California Department of Motor Vehicles classifies these types of vehicles as “miniature vehicles” that cannot be registered or operated on public streets.

Unlike e-bikes, which are powered by their own electric motors and have their own classification, pocket bikes and minibikes may be powered by electric motors or small gas engines.

Are minibikes new?

While minibikes have grown in popularity in recent years, hobbyists have been scrapping together the motorized devices for decades.

Recently, local minibike groups have attracted dozens of riders from around the Los Angeles area to participate in group “rideouts,” often described by law enforcement as “takeovers.” The subculture has also inspired young tinkerers and mechanics to build up their rides or even offer mobile mechanic services.

Is it legal to ride minibikes on California public streets and highways?

No. That’s because they are not equipped with the required safety features, such as headlights, taillights, and mirrors, according to Geovana Herrera, a Department of Motor Vehicles spokesperson.

Can you legally ride a minibike anywhere in California?

Minibikes may only be operated on private property, racetracks or designated off-road areas, Herrera said. Their use is prohibited on public roads, sidewalks, bike paths, hiking trails, and other public lands, according to California Vehicle Code Section 21720.

What happens if you’re stopped or cited riding a minibike in L.A.?

Individuals can get cited for violating California Vehicle Code Section 21720.

If you get cited for violating the law, your pocket or minibike may be impounded for up to 48 hours. The rider will be responsible for all costs associated with the removal and storage of the bike.

Enforcing the law is up to local and state law enforcement agencies. Some Eastside minibike riders told Boyle Heights Beat they’ve had differing experiences depending on which agency pulls them over.

What were the violations on the 6th Street Bridge?

The LAPD said it detained 78 people at the Sixth Street Bridge, citing 49 juveniles and 17 adults for operating an illegal minibike on streets.

Police said it also issued five administrative enforcement citations for being present at a street takeover and arrested two people on suspicion of aiding and abetting.

A total of 76 vehicles were impounded, including 74 minibikes and two pickup trucks, the LAPD said.

The LAPD also said it conducted an investigative report for misdemeanor child endangerment involving a parent who admitted allowing his 13-year-old daughter to participate in the Sunday ride that police referred to as a “takeover.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

A 12-acre park beneath the 6th Street Bridge won’t open until early 2027, months later than city officials had expected. 

The delay is due to scheduling changes to the installation of playground equipment, according to Mary Nemick, the director of communications for the city’s Bureau of Engineering.

Known formally as the Sixth Street PARC (Park, Arts, River & Connectivity), the park will  feature an arts plaza, complete with a performance amphitheater, garden and terrace seating. Other amenities include a café, dog park, fitness equipment and sports courts. 

The delayed opening comes after months of concerns from residents over the park’s maintenance and safety. Community members have raised concerns about the possibility of homeless encampments forming at the park, as well as graffiti and whether copper wire theft from the bridge could affect the park’s safety. 

A recent DTLA Insider video on Instagram ignited hundreds of comments from people worried about the park’s upkeep. The video posed the question, “How are they planning on keeping this park safe and clean?” 

“Let’s all use it and embrace it, and keep it clean together. Tags do not equal “unsafe” i wish we could embrace street art a little,” one commenter wrote, adding, “I’m glad it’s getting attention and scrutiny to keep the city on their toes.”

Others referred to it as the “next MacArthur Park” or “MacArthur Park 2.0.” One person suggested turning it into a state park “like L.A. historical park with park rangers.”

An Arts District resident has also spearheaded an effort calling for the city council to consider a camping ban around the park.

Graffiti is seen at the Sixth Street PARC (Park, Arts, River & Connectivity).

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Steve Saldivar

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The LA Local

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Earlier this month, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado said her office was working on a formal agreement with various city departments, including public works, recreation and parks and cultural affairs, to establish “responsibility for the park’s security measures, maintenance, programming, and day-to-day management before it opens.” 

Her statement came as rumors swirled that the fencing surrounding the park would come down in October. 

“Keeping this park safe requires clear accountability, consistent maintenance, regular programming, and a coordinated response when concerns arise. We will share additional details publicly once the agreement and opening plans are finalized,” Jurado said in a statement.

Construction of the park began in 2023, just a year after the grand opening celebration of the bridge, which connects historic Boyle Heights with the Arts District neighborhood and crosses the Los Angeles River. The park was set to open later this year.

The city’s Bureau of Engineering and the Department of Parks and Recreation did not provide any additional details about the delays, nor did they provide a specific date for the park’s opening.