Miami Beach of the East — Fujisawa's Miami Beach identity

Overview

Miami Beach of the East (東洋のマイアミビーチ) is a promotional catchphrase and local nickname used to market the southern coastline of Fujisawa City in Kanagawa Prefecture as a beach tourism area. Fujisawa initially promoted the area as “Eastern Miami,” but after concluding a sister‑city partnership with Miami Beach in 1959 the city adopted the name “Miami Beach of the East.” The phrase has been used in local events and tourism promotion since then.

The area the name covers

In principle the name refers to the beach‑resort strip on the southern side of Fujisawa: the Katase district (including Enoshima), the Kugenuma district, and the Tsujido coastal area. Separate from this geographic definition, the series of summer events staged by Fujisawa — called the “Enoshima Miami Beach Show” by the municipal tourism association — has come to include festivals and programs across the city during the season.

How the nickname emerged (1946–1957)

The idea of associating Fujisawa’s shore with Miami has several cultural and local origins recorded in the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1946 Xavier Cugat’s tune “Playa De Miami” (released in Japan under the title “Miami Beach Rumba”) became a hit; the song and related American beach culture became popular in Japan through the 1950s. On April 1, 1947, Katase Town merged into Fujisawa City, bringing Enoshima, Katase and Kugenuma together and creating a municipal basis for coordinated tourism development.

By 1951, after the peak period of the Korean War, U.S. service personnel from bases in northern Kanagawa frequently drove to the local beaches on days off for barbecues and surfing; local residents began referring to the shoreline as the “GI Beach.” Those U.S. visitors reportedly called the coast “Miami,” and that usage is recorded as one of the prompts for Fujisawa’s later marketing as an “Eastern Miami.”

On May 3, 1957, Enoshima Aquarium Co., Ltd. opened a Marine Land facility on Katase Nishihama, and around that time Fujisawa began to present the Katase–Kugenuma area as analogous to the famous Florida resort, marketing it under the “Eastern Miami” label.

The 1959 sister‑city agreement and the Miami Beach Show

A wave of citizen‑to‑citizen exchange initiatives after 1956 helped set the stage for a formal partnership. Following U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s September 1956 promotion of a “people‑to‑people” approach, Fujisawa’s mayor Koichiro Kaneko sent a proposal for a city friendship to the mayor of Miami on February 21, 1958. In June 1958 Mayor Robert King High of Miami replied that Miami had already pursued ties elsewhere and relayed Fujisawa’s message to the U.S. Information Service.

Fujisawa later discovered a distinction between Miami and Miami Beach: the latter is the neighboring seaside municipality where the beach resort is actually located. On February 26, 1959, Kenneth Oka, mayor of Miami Beach, sent a letter indicating willingness to form a partnership; on March 4, 1959, the Miami Beach City Council passed a resolution to that effect, and on March 5 Fujisawa’s City Council approved the partnership unanimously. Fujisawa sent international telegrams notifying the Miami Beach mayor and Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Koichiro Asami, whose home was in Katase.

The sister‑city tie was the first for both Fujisawa and Miami Beach; Fujisawa was the 14th Japanese municipality to conclude a sister‑city partnership at that time. On the occasion of the agreement Fujisawa amended its promotional name from “Eastern Miami” to “Miami Beach of the East.”

A series of exchanges and commemorative events followed in 1959: a luncheon and a ceremony in Washington, D.C. on March 8 attended by Ambassador Asami; the formation of joint committee rules in April; visits from Miami Beach representatives such as Harold Binder; a civic concert on April 19; and the planning of celebratory programs. That summer Fujisawa staged a suite of events — an opening show on July 18, festival events at Chichibu‑no‑miya Memorial Gymnasium on August 7, a large civic parade on August 8 (which ran a route including the front of the Yokohama Bank Fujisawa branch, Honmachi, Tsujido and the Odakyu Beach House), and a closing fireworks display on August 15. The local name for this sequence of summer programs was the “Miami Beach Show,” and it became the origin for what Fujisawa’s tourism association later calls the “Enoshima Miami Beach Show.”

Main sites along the coast

The phrase is tied to an established cluster of coastal sights and facilities in southern Fujisawa. Key places identified with the name include:

• Enoshima and Enoshima Shrine (the shrine’s component sites are recorded as Hetsunomiya, Nakatsunomiya, Okutsunomiya and the Iwaya cave).
• Enoshima Samuel Cocking Garden and the Enoshima observatory lighthouse (the garden contains a Miami Beach Square with an Art Deco–style monument that houses a “Key of Friendship”).
• Shonan Port and Enoshima Yacht Harbor.
• Katase Higashihama (Katase East Beach) and Katase Nishihama / Kugenuma swimming beaches.
• Shonan Kaigan Park, Kugenuma Seaside Park and Tsujido Seaside Park, together with the Tsujido bathing beach and the Shonan coastal “sand‑only path.”
• New Enoshima Aquarium and local sports facilities such as the Shonan Kugenuma permanent courts.
• Nie Er Memorial Square (聶耳記念広場) is also listed among the sites associated with the district.

These names are recorded as the principal tourist spots grouped under the Miami Beach of the East label.

Post‑1959 exchanges, contests and collections

The sister‑city link produced recurring cultural exchange and civic programs. A pageant tradition that predates the partnership continued under new names: the local beauty‑pageant lineage is traced to a 1949 event called “Miss Benten,” evolving through titles such as “Miss Fujisawa” (1950), “Miss Shell Princess” (1953), and “Sea Queen Contest” (1955), and in 1960 the event took the title “Enoshima Miami Beach Queen.”

On March 5, 1969 Fujisawa marked the 10th anniversary of the sister‑city link and Mayor Kaneko became an honorary citizen of Miami Beach; on March 5, 1974 the 15th anniversary included a visit by Miami Beach Mayor Chuck Hall and reciprocal visits by Fujisawa delegations later in 1974.

Other milestones recorded in the post‑1959 history include:

• 1985: the 100th anniversary of Enoshima beach opening.
• April 1, 1995: establishment of the Fujisawa City Tourism Association.
• 1996: the tourism association began the “Shonan Enoshima Sea Queen & Sea Prince Contest.”
• March 10–18, 2000: “Japan Week 2000” held in Miami Beach.
• October 3, 2000: formation of the Shonan Miami Beach City Friendship Association; that body and civic volunteer groups have organized multiple goodwill visits and exchanges since.
• July 2002: unveiling of the “Key of Friendship” monument in the Samuel Cocking Garden with an official visit from Miami Beach representatives.
• 2008–2009: a 50th anniversary exhibition and a series of official delegations and commemorative events culminated on March 14, 2009, when Mayor Matti Herrera Bower led a Miami Beach delegation to Fujisawa for the 50th anniversary ceremony.

Finally, Fujisawa holds a tangible record of the relationship in its municipal library system: the Fujisawa City Shonan Oba Citizens’ Library houses a special “Miami Beach collection” of 283 volumes donated by Miami Beach and by local citizens, described as mostly in English.

FAQ

What is Miami Beach of the East?

It is a catchphrase and nickname used to market the southern coast of Fujisawa City as a tourist beach area.

When did Fujisawa and Miami Beach conclude their sister‑city agreement?

Miami Beach City Council resolved on March 4, 1959, and Fujisawa City Council approved the partnership on March 5, 1959.

Which coastal districts does the name refer to?

In principle it covers the Katase district (including Enoshima), the Kugenuma district and the Tsujido district coastal areas.

Where is the Miami Beach special collection held?

The Fujisawa City Shonan Oba Citizens’ Library holds 283 books as the "Miami Beach" special collection, mostly in English.