Connecting Two Cities.Building Lasting Friendship.
For nearly seven decades, the San Diego-Yokohama Sister City Society has helped bring people together across the Pacific.
We create opportunities for people in San Diego and Yokohama to experience each other’s cultures, build meaningful relationships and turn international friendship into something personal.
Our work reaches across education, culture, business and community, connecting students, educators, artists, civic leaders, organizations and families.
From student exchanges and cultural traditions to new partnerships and community programs, we honor the friendship established between San Diego and Yokohama in 1957 while creating new opportunities for the generations who will carry it forward.
Building a Friendship Across the Pacific
San Diego Mayor John Butler's participation in the Japan-American Pacific Coast Mayors' Conferences opened early ties with Japan and Yokohama. Those connections became personal through Yokohama-born San Diegan Saburo Muraoka, who served as a translator for visiting delegates and traveled to Yokohama to help build a relationship between the two cities.
A SYMBOL OF FRIENDSHIP
Working with Yokohama Mayor Ryozo Hiranuma, Yokohama-born San Diegan Saburo Muraoka helped arrange the presentation of a traditional Japanese stone lantern to San Diego. Later that year, San Diego Mayor Charles Dail traveled to Yokohama for the Japan-American Pacific Coast Mayors' Conference, further strengthening the connection between the two cities.
The lantern carried a message that would come to define the relationship: “Let this lantern help light the way to everlasting peace.”
An Enduring Partnership Begins
On October 21, 1956, San Diego and Yokohama entered into a city affiliation inspired by President Dwight D. Eisenhower's emerging People-to-People movement.
Among the first such relationships in the United States and the first on the American West Coast, the partnership was founded on a simple idea: lasting peace begins when people come to know and understand one another
SAN DIEGO COMES TO YOKOHAMA
major San Diego delegation led by Deputy Mayor Ross Tharpe traveled to Yokohama for commemorative celebrations and sister-city ceremonies. During the visit, Yokohama announced two enduring gifts to San Diego: the Friendship Bell and a traditional Japanese tea house.
LANDMARKS ON TWO SHORES
Yokohama's ceremonial tea house opened in Balboa Park, the Friendship Bell found its permanent home on Shelter Island, and San Diego sent a replica of Donal Hord's Guardian of the Water to Yokohama. Together, these gifts created lasting symbols of the relationship in both cities.
A HOME FOR CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
First announced as a gift from Yokohama in 1958, the traditional tea house arrived and was dedicated in Balboa Park in 1960. In 1962, San Diego's Japanese American community began operating it as the House of Japan, creating a home for Japanese culture and community in Balboa Park.
THE DREAM OF A GARDEN
Following Mayor Charles Dail's death in 1968, the Sister City Society, led by Will Hippen, dedicated a Meiji-style gate in his memory. The Charles C. Dail Memorial Gate became an early expression of a larger vision: creating a permanent Japanese garden in Balboa Park.
STUDENTS CROSS THE PACIFIC
The relationship expanded into higher education as UC San Diego began sending students to Yokohama for summer study. The program gave a new generation the opportunity to experience their sister city firsthand and opened a new chapter of educational exchange.
A SONG ECHOES ACROSS THE PACIFIC
For the 25th anniversary of the sister-city relationship, matching “San Diego the Beautiful” song monuments were established in Yokohama and San Diego, creating permanent symbols of friendship on both sides of the Pacific.
The song was the theme of the Yokohama-San Diego Friendship Committee and had become well known in Yokohama. The inscription on the San Diego monument expressed the hope that the song would also become beloved in San Diego and “echo across the Pacific” as a symbol of the cities’ enduring friendship.
CONNECTing through EDUCATION
High school exchanges flourish as university and academic partnerships expand. UC San Diego and Yokohama City University establish a medical academic exchange agreement, strengthening connections between students, educators, and institutions in both cities.
YOKOHAMA THE WAVE
Led by Ruben Seja and a community of artists including Mario Torero and Satoshi “Rocco”, a groundbreaking exchange connects 125 artists from San Diego, Tijuana, and Yokohama. Exhibitions travel across the Pacific, culminating in The Wave from Yokohama, bringing Yokohama artists to San Diego and Tijuana.
THE LIGHT OF FRIENDSHIP
Yokohama Mayor Hidenobu Takahide visited San Diego during the 40th anniversary year. Yokohama presented a new bronze yukimi-doro, the “Light of Friendship,” to the Japanese Friendship Garden, echoing the lantern that had helped begin the relationship in 1955.
SCIENCE, BUSINESS & SOLIDARITY
As San Diego and Yokohama approached fifty years together, the relationship expanded into economic and bioscience cooperation, connecting two centers of research and innovation. When devastating wildfires struck San Diego in 2003, Yokohama raised and sent relief funds to support its Sister City, demonstrating that the relationship extended far beyond official exchange. These growing civic, economic, and community ties culminated in the 50th anniversary in 2007.
STANDING TOGETHER
The friendship continued to take physical form on Shelter Island with the Girl in Red Shoes statue and the restoration of the Yokohama Friendship Bell pavilion, strengthening a place that had long symbolized San Diego and Yokohama’s connection.
In 2011, that friendship took on deeper meaning following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. San Diegans came together in support of Yokohama and Japan through relief efforts, paper cranes, and messages of hope, demonstrating that the sister-city relationship was not only about cultural exchange, but about standing together in times of hardship.
SCHOOLS, GARDENS & JAZZ
A new generation of friendship began taking shape through schools, culture, and community. Mission Bay High School and Yokohama Municipal Kanazawa High School became Sister Schools, while the Raul Cadena Friendship Garden created a lasting symbol of friendship at Crown Point Junior Music Academy.
The Mission Bay Jazz Preservationists also began their Goodwill Ambassadorial Tours to Yokohama, bringing San Diego students across the Pacific and establishing a musical tradition that continues today. Together, these programs helped transform the Sister City relationship into opportunities for young people to experience the friendship firsthand.
FRIENDSHIP WITHOUT BORDERS
When COVID-19 halted international travel, San Diego and Yokohama found new ways to connect. Beginning in May 2020, educators and leaders from both cities met virtually to share approaches to distance learning and reopening schools, later joined by partners in South Korea and New Zealand.
Connect the World, originally an after-school program at Crown Point Junior Music Academy, moved online as a weekly cultural exchange connecting young people in San Diego and Yokohama.
The Society also helped bring International Peace & Humanity Day online, co-producing virtual commemorations with SD-WISH beginning with the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2020. Across education, culture, and peace, a period of separation created new ways to bring people together.
BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR THE FUTURE
Building on decades of educational exchange, new Japanese-language programs were established in Poway Unified School District with support from the Japan Foundation, creating lasting opportunities for students to study Japanese language and culture and strengthening connections with Japan from the classroom outward.
NEW ROOTS FOR THE FUTURE
A new chapter began with the Sister School partnership between Poway High School and Yokohama Higashi High School, followed by their first student exchange. At the same time, Trees for Peace expanded the relationship through education, remembrance, and peace, giving a new generation opportunities to carry the San Diego-Yokohama legacy forward.
70 Years Strong.
The San Diego-Yokohama relationship is more than a history we celebrate. Today, it continues through programs connecting students, educators, artists, community leaders, and families across the Pacific.
