Overview

Terminal Island: Lost Communities on America’s Edge is the joint effort of two authors, Naomi Hirahara and Geraldine Knatz, whose backgrounds and talents are as different as the cultures that called the island home over its many years. Hirahara and Knatz have sewn together a story as compelling as any documentary or historical epic, tracing the history of Terminal Island through its beginnings as a resort area for the wealthy, to its time as the center of the LA fishing industry where a Japanese community struggles with the implications and repercussions of World War II. Terminal Island, traces the history of a sheltered spot in the Pacific Ocean that once served as a resort for wealthy Southern California landowners, as a refuge for its artists and writers and scientists, and eventually a community of Japanese families who made the island their own. This community was at the heart of one of Southern California’s most important businesses: the fisheries. World War II devastated the community, with the internment of Japanese Americans removing the entire population of Terminal Island into internment camps. Terminal Island: Lost Communities of Los Angeles Harbor tells the story of this small place, the people who lived there, and the huge impact they had on the history of Los Angeles.

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9781626401273

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The book offers a rich record of that community and more. As is true of just about everything in Los Angeles, peeling back the layers of a place leads to unexpected discoveries. -- Nick Owchar * The Los Angeles Times *

Author Information

Naomi Hirahara is an multi-award-winning author and journalist who was born and raised in Pasadena, California, received her bachelor's degree in international relations from Stanford University, and studied at the Inter-University Center for Advanced Japanese Language Studies in Tokyo. She was a reporter and editor of The Rafu Shimpo during the culmination of the redress and reparations movement for Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes during World War II. She is the author and/or editor of several books including: Green Makers: Japanese American Gardeners in Southern California (2000), A Taste for Strawberries: The Independent Journey of Nisei Farmer Manabi Hirasaki (2003), A Scent of Flowers: The History of the Southern California Flower Market (2004), among many others. She is also a celebrated author of many mysteries and short stories. She lives in Pasadena. Geraldine Knatz, PhD., has had a passion for history her whole life. From 2006 to 2014, she served as the first female executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, where she oversaw the daily operations and internal management of one of the world’s busiest container ports. Dr. Knatz earned two degrees from the University of Southern California: a doctorate in biological science and a Master of Science in environmental engineering, where she currently is a Professor of Practice in the Schools of Public Policy and Engineering. She also holds an undergraduate degree in zoology from Rutgers University. She was instrumental in establishing the archives of the Port of Los Angeles, from which many of the images and maps in Terminal Island are drawn. Under her leadership at the Port, Ernest Marquez and Veronique de Turenne teamed to write Port of Los Angeles: An Illustrated History from 1850 to 1945, documenting the Port’s centennial anniversary. She is also the author of Long Beach’s Los Cerritos (2014) and Port of Los Angeles: Conflict, Commerce, and the Fight for Control (2019).

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