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Yahoo
16-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Terminal Island's last Japanese American buildings are under threat
[Source] The last two surviving buildings from a once-thriving Japanese American fishing village in Terminal Island, Los Angeles, have been included in the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of America's 11 most endangered historic places in 2025. About Terminal Island and the buildings Built in 1918 and 1923, respectively, dry goods store Nanka Shoten and grocery A. Nakamura Co. stand as the only remaining structures from a community of roughly 3,000 Japanese Americans who lived on Terminal Island before World War II. Located on Tuna Street, which served as the commercial center of 'Fish Harbor,' the buildings now sit empty on a waterfront street in what has become a heavily industrialized port dominated by container storage facilities. 'Terminal Island is unrecognizable from the once happy loving place where I was born,' former resident Miho Shiroishi said in a statement. 'Having the two buildings there when everything else is gone from the village is a huge comfort ... Without the two Tuna Street Buildings what do you have? Nothing.' Trending on NextShark: A substantial contribution Terminal Island represents a crucial but often overlooked chapter in American history. Its residents were reportedly the first Japanese Americans forcibly removed after Pearl Harbor, with FBI agents arresting fishermen in February 1942 and families given just 48 hours to evacuate. 'Japanese fishermen's contribution was substantial,' Donna Reiko Cottrell, a board member of the Terminal Islanders Association, told the Los Angeles Public Press. 'If you don't believe me, take a look at the LA County flag ... in the bottom left-hand corner, there's a tuna ... that's how important fishing was.' The Port of Los Angeles is reportedly considering demolition of the buildings to make room for container storage, despite their pending nomination for Historic-Cultural Monument status initiated in February 2025 by Councilmember Tim McOsker. Trending on NextShark: What's being done Preservation efforts are led by the Terminal Islanders Association, which has partnered with the National Trust and LA Conservancy to propose solutions, including potentially repurposing the buildings as stores serving port workers. 'We have to have hope,' Terry Hara, president of Terminal Islanders Association, told Pacific Citizen earlier this year. 'Our hope is to preserve the buildings, the last piece of what was part of the Japanese village on Tuna Street to repurpose and help contribute cultural value.' Trending on NextShark: This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter — a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices. Subscribe free to join the movement. If you love what we're building, consider becoming a paid member — your support helps us grow our team, investigate impactful stories, and uplift our community. Trending on NextShark: Subscribe here now! Download the NextShark App: Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today!
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
L.A.'s Terminal Island buildings listed among America's 11 most endangered historic places
The only two surviving buildings from Terminal Island's days as a thriving Japanese American fishing village in the early 1900s have been placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2025 list of America's 11 most endangered historic places. The designation, announced Wednesday morning, is meant to elevate the visibility of the site, which stands as a physical reminder of a story that ended with the incarceration of the island's residents — among an estimated 120,000 people of Japanese descent, most American citizens, who were forcibly removed following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War II. Today, Terminal Island is part of one the country's busiest container ports, and many people don't know that it was the first place from which Japanese Americans were uprooted and sent to government camps such as Manzanar in the Owens Valley. "It's a story that hasn't been really told," said Los Angeles Conservancy President and Chief Executive Adrian Scott Fine, adding that his organization has been working to preserve Terminal Island's structures for close to two decades. "And if you go there, you're not going to know that unless you stumble across these two buildings and then learn the story, because everything, with the exception of these two buildings, has been cleared away." The village was home to more than 3,000 people living in small wooden cottages and bungalows. Tuna Street was the main business thoroughfare and home to the two remaining buildings: the dry goods store Nanka Shoten (1918) and the grocery A. Nakamura Co. (1923). The destruction of the village began immediately following its residents' removal in 1942, and over the years more structures were razed as the island grew into an industrial and commercial port. Historic sites on the annual National Trust list are chosen in part "based on the urgency of the threat, the viability of the proposed solution and the community engagement around the site," said National Trust President and Chief Executive Carol Quillen. A group of survivors and descendants of the Terminal Island community — the Terminal Islanders Assn., formed in the 1970s — has been crucial to preservation efforts and has partnered with the National Trust and the L.A. Conservancy to propose meaningful and practical preservation solutions. Fine said discussions have included turning the structures into stores selling food and other necessities to port workers, who have few options on the island. "They were always community-serving, and that would continue the original function and use even today," said Fine, while helping to tell the history. The Tuna Street buildings are being considered for a historic-cultural monument designation with the city of L.A., a lengthy process that does not totally protect any site from destruction. The Port of Los Angeles is reportedly considering demolishing the vacant and deteriorating buildings to make room for more container storage. Fine said the port has done a study that found the buildings to not be historic. But razing the buildings, he said, would contradict a master plan that the port hammered out with the L.A. Conservancy in 2013 after the entire island was placed on that year's National Trust list of endangered places. The report allows the port to conduct a streamlined environmental review leading to demolition, "which they've done for some of the other tuna canneries and structures that were there just in the last 10 years," Fine said. "So in pattern and in practice, we believe that that's very much how they're approaching this one as well." The National Trust's Quillen said the goal is to highlight "the contributions of these folks to our country's history and economy, and the ways in which this community fought for the rights that we all subscribe to. So when I think about the promise of this country, the ideals that are expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, I want to honor the people whose lives and work exemplified the fight to realize those ideals." The other 10 sites on the 2025 National Trust list are: Cedar Key, Fla. French Broad and Swannanoa River corridors in western North Carolina Hotel Casa Blanca, Idlewild, Mich. May Hicks Curtis House, Flagstaff, Ariz. Mystery Castle, Phoenix The Chateau at Oregon Caves, Caves Junction, Ore. Pamunkey Indian Reservation, King William County, Va. San Juan Hotel, San Juan, Texas The Turtle, Niagara Falls, N.Y. The Wellington, Pine Hill, N.Y. At noon Wednesday, the L.A. Conservancy will hold a virtual program about the history of Tuna Street and efforts to preserve it. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
