The San Jose Obon Festival has been going on since at least 1936 which is the earliest festival that we have a record from. However, we know anecdotally that there was an Obon Odori (dancing) as early as 1904. After the Japanese-Americans returned from the internment camps during World War II, they held a Obon Odori. The early Obon Festivals were mostly for the members and the Japantown (Nihonmachi) community members. It slowly grew until the early 1980s when Jim McClure took over as the Obon chairperson. He oversaw the expansion of the event to two days; creation of the food court, standardization of the booths using galvanized pipes and tarps, the modular Yagura stage and selling Obon merchandise. It was during his time, that the dancer count exceeded 1,000. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jim for his service over 30 years and the Festival would be nothing like what it is today without his efforts.

On this page, we attempt to preserve some of the history of our Obon Festival.