Terminal Island Personal Histories Collection

Terminal Island was the location of a Japanese fishing village in the Port of Los Angeles. Early Japanese immigrants settled and fished for abalone and lobster in the San Pedro Bay area in 1899, but the community eventually shifted to East San Pedro on the western end of Terminal Island by 1910, where fishermen saw more profit in catching sardines and tuna[1]. By the 1930s, the Japanese settlers eventually outnumbered other immigrant communities in the area as their population reached its peak at around three thousand[2]. What was most unique about the Japanese on Terminal Island was that the residents were able to maintain their indigenous and cultural identity due to them being an insulated and mostly homogenous community.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, the FBI made quick work of arresting and searching the homes of Issei (first-generation Japanese American) leaders and fishermen under the suspicion that they had the potential to contact enemy vessels with their long-distance sea-faring boats and shortwave radios, and that the Issei, who were aliens ineligible for citizenship by law, would be more closely aligned to their home country than the United States[3]. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19th, 1942, resulting in the mass removal of all peoples of Japanese ancestry away from the West Coast. Terminal Islanders, though, were not given the luxury of preparing to move, unlike other Japanese American communities, as they were only given 48 hours beginning on February 25th before they would be forcibly evicted and sent to temporary quarters before being incarcerated in concentration camps, such as Manzanar[4].

Upon the return home soon after World War II ended, Terminal Islanders would come to find unfortunate dramatic changes: the navy soon occupied East San Pedro, razing homes and shops, and confiscating abandoned boats for military purposes, and the California Fish and Game Commission prohibited "Japanese aliens" or "aliens ineligible for citizenship" from getting commercial licenses. The prevention of Japanese Americans in California from getting commercial licenses would eventually be overturned in the U.S. Supreme Court (Takahashi v. Fish and Game Commission) in 1948 after its constitutionality was challenged[5]. Terminal Island would never be restored to the thriving fishing village it once was. What exists today, though, is the Terminal Islanders Club, which is an association comprised of former residents and their descendants.

[1]Lilian Takahashi Hoffecker. "Terminal Island, California," Densho Encyclopedia https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Terminal%20Island,%20California (accessed Dec 14 2020).

[2]Lilian Takahashi Hoffecker. "Terminal Island, California".

[3]Lilian Takahashi Hoffecker. "Terminal Island, California".

[4]Lilian Takahashi Hoffecker. "Terminal Island, California".

[5]Lilian Takahashi Hoffecker. "Terminal Island, California".