The town where Nikkei lived
Terminal Island, the Southwest, and Venice. This series visits areas near Los Angeles that were once home to Japanese residents and talks to witnesses about what life was like back then.
Stories from this series
Part 3 (Part 2) Terminal Island
June 26, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
Part 1 >> Minoru Fujiuchi, a second-generation Japanese-American born on Terminal Island, raised in San Pedro, and with roots in Wakayama, spent his time in an internment camp from age 13 to 16. After passing through Santa Anita, his family returned to Los Angeles in September 1945 after the war ended in Amache, Colorado. However, there was nothing left of Fujiuchi's hometown, Terminal Island. The U.S. government had destroyed all the facilities for Japanese fishermen and evacuated them, so that …
Part 3 (first half) Terminal Island
June 7, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
One Saturday afternoon, I was driving toward San Pedro. At a fork just before the end of the Harbor Freeway, I headed toward the green Vincent Thomas Bridge. The bridge, where a famous film director jumped to his death last summer, is quite high above the water and offers a view of the Port of Los Angeles below. Terminal Island spreads out to the right as I head toward the road. Before the war, this was a fishing village where …
2nd Venice
May 14, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
Although the Southwest District was once the center of the Japanese community in Los Angeles, the Japanese population plummeted like the tide after the Watts Riots. Venice, which we visited next, has a very different appearance from the Southwest District. This is because the Japanese community is still firmly established, centered around the community center and Honganji temple. It is true that the population has decreased compared to the past, but the unity of Japanese people in this area remains …
Part 1 (Part 2) Southwest Los Angeles (Crenshaw District)
March 26, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
Read the first part >> Why on earth did all the Japanese people in the Southwest area disappear to where? Kunio Shiba, president of the Southwest Senior Center, answered this question."I think the Watts riots were a catalyst. Those riots were so violent that the whole city was wiped out. When people think of riots these days, they tend to think of the Los Angeles riots of 1992, but the Watts riots were on a completely different scale." The Watts …
Part 1 (first half): Southwest Los Angeles (Crenshaw District)
March 5, 2013 • Keiko Fukuda
One day, a friend showed me a photo he had taken on his digital camera. A torii gate stood with the sunlight of the seaside as its backdrop. "Where do you think this is? Terminal Island between San Pedro and Long Beach (in the suburbs of Los Angeles). Apparently there used to be a Japanese town there. Apparently this torii gate is a remnant of that." I have heard of Terminal Island. Before the war, it was a town for …
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