Season 2. Episode 4. Terminal Island - Japanese Fishing Village Part 1.

Transcript

HOST (Joel Torrez Jr.):
Welcome to The Harbor Area Podcast. Today, we journey back in time to a place that once bustled with life, laughter, and the smell of the sea—the Japanese fishing village on Terminal Island in San Pedro.

Picture it: narrow wooden houses pressed close together; children playing on dirt roads; women hanging laundry that smells faintly of salt air; men returning from the boats with the day’s catch. You’d hear a mix of languages—Japanese spoken between families, English traded in the markets—and the constant hum of nets being mended. The air carried the scent of the ocean mingled with miso soup simmering on stoves, fresh fish drying, and the earthy aroma of steaming rice.
 Many families wore traditional Japanese clothing, blending old-world heritage with the rhythms of a new American home.

It was a vibrant, tight-knit community—a small village by the water preserving centuries-old traditions while shaping the cultural fabric of the Los Angeles Harbor.

Today, I’m honored to be joined by two very special guests: Alice Nagano, who at 91 years old lived in the village and remembers it vividly, and Donna Reiko Cottrell, Vice President of the Terminal Island Board of Directors, who is helping preserve that history for future generations. Together, they’ll help us understand not just what life looked like, but what it felt like to grow up in one of the most unique communities in San Pedro’s history.

[Music fades out]

HOST:
I’m going to pass the mic so our guests can introduce themselves.

ALICE NAGANO:
I’m Alice Nagano. I’m 91 years old. I’m from Terminal Island, and I live in Long Beach now.

DONNA REIKO COTTRELL:
I’m Donna Reiko Cottrell, Vice President of the Terminal Island Board of Directors. I’ve served on the board for 13 years.

HOST:
Wonderful. Thank you both for being here to share your story about Terminal Island—the Japanese fishing village. Alice, you actually lived there as a child, right?

ALICE:
Yes. I was born there.

HOST:
When people ask where you were born and you say “Terminal Island,” do they give you a look?

ALICE (laughs):
They do. But that’s where I was born and raised—until I was seven, when we had to leave. Terminal Island will always be my home.

HOST:
We’ll talk about the day your family was forced to leave. Before that, what’s your earliest memory of the village?

ALICE:
It was home—that’s all I knew. We had an elementary school. There was no high school, so older kids crossed the channel to San Pedro. I went to school, came back, played with my friends—just like any other children. A normal life.

HOST:
What’s your birthdate?

ALICE:
July 28, 1934.

HOST:
Ninety-one years of memories—amazing. What was daily life like for your family?

ALICE:
Most fathers went out fishing; most mothers worked in the canneries. Each cannery had its own horn. When the horn sounded, mothers listened—if it was their cannery, they had to go immediately because a boat had come in. Sometimes it was in the middle of the night. I’d wake up and my mother wouldn’t be there, but I was never afraid. That’s how safe it felt.
We kids played after dark; doors were never locked. It was a close-knit village—everyone looked after each other. A very nice place to live.

HOST:
Can you tell us your parents’ names?

ALICE:
My mother was Miano. My father’s name was Muro, but everyone called him “Toki.” He was a champion sumo wrestler on Terminal Island and got a sumo name—so I grew up thinking Toki was his real name!

HOST:
Why did your parents come to the United States?

ALICE:
My father was already here. He returned to Japan, married my mother, and brought her over. He was first-generation—issei. I’m nisei—second generation. Donna is sansei—third.

HOST:
What role did the ocean play in your life?

ALICE:
Everything. In summer we went to Brighton Beach on Terminal Island. But that beach is gone now—erased by the port and industrialization. Terminal Island is mostly gone, except for two buildings we’re trying to preserve. Some people ask why keep old buildings—but to me, those buildings are Terminal Island. Take them away, and it’s like we never existed.

HOST:
Are there sounds or smells that bring you back?

ALICE:
Sometimes I catch a whiff and think of the cannery. There are no horns anymore, but the ocean smell takes me back.

HOST:
A favorite food from your mother?

ALICE:
Sashimi—my last-meal choice! Fishermen brought home fish and shared with neighbors. We never wasted anything—heads, innards—my mother knew how to cook it all. We loved tuna, of course, and mackerel. My mother salted and sun-dried mackerel, then cooked it over the fire—so good.

HOST:
How would you describe the community’s spirit before it was disrupted?

ALICE:
Peaceful. Happy. Self-contained. We had everything within walking distance—stores, churches, judo halls, pool halls, beauty shops. Few people had cars. Vendors came in from outside, too. It felt perfect.

HOST:
This was before the Vincent Thomas Bridge, so people took ferries between Long Beach and San Pedro?

ALICE:
Yes. Not modern ferries—small boats with a canvas top. I loved riding them. We boarded where the Los Angeles Maritime Museum is now.

HOST:
What traditions brought the community together?

ALICE:
Obon—the summer festival to welcome ancestors. At home, I keep a small shrine with flowers and foods they liked. It lasts about a week, with dancing and food, and then we say goodbye until next year.

HOST:
How did the village balance Japanese customs with American life?

ALICE:
It was just there—both together. My first language was Japanese, so school in English was hard at first. I spent time with my grandparents in Santa Ana and learned more English there. Back on Terminal Island, teachers wanted to move me up a grade, but my mother said no.

HOST:
What schools did you attend?

ALICE:
Terminal Island—East San Pedro Grammar School at Tuna and Terminal Way. Older kids took the ferry to high school in San Pedro. Later, I went to Long Beach Poly. My children and grandchildren went there too.

HOST:
Music?

ALICE:
I learned Japanese songs more than American ones.

DONNA:
There were American customs too—baseball teams, Boy Scouts—alongside sumo and judo, Girls’ Day and Boys’ Day, and a big New Year. The children wore kimono to greet neighbors, who gave money in little envelopes—similar to Chinese New Year—though we celebrated on American New Year’s Day.

HOST:
How did children spend free time?

ALICE:
Regular games—hide-and-seek, chasing. Older kids swam and dove for coins. Just simple fun.

HOST:
Let’s talk about what led up to the displacement. Immigration from Japan—especially from prefecutures like Wakayama—grew over the early 1900s. The Japanese population on Terminal Island rose from around 500 in 1911 to roughly 700 in the 1930s, and eventually to about 3,000 people. Alice, you were born in 1934. What happened next?

ALICE:
World War II.

DONNA:
And people should know the discrimination existed long before Pearl Harbor. There were constant attempts to block fishing licenses, alien land laws preventing property ownership, and laws denying citizenship. Openly anti-Japanese groups were politically active. By the time war came, hostility was already normalized.
Right after Pearl Harbor, anyone with a fishing license was arrested—men taken straight off their boats. Then families on Terminal Island were given 48 hours to leave.

[Beat — room tone]

HOST (closing for Part 1):
What we’ve heard today is more than history—it’s memory.
Alice’s childhood reminds us this was a thriving, self-contained community, full of life, culture, and connection—from cannery horns calling mothers to work, to children playing freely, to the festivals that tied everyone together. The Japanese fishing village was a world of its own.
Woven into those memories, though, is the shadow of what was to come: growing discrimination, laws designed to hold the community back, and the pressures that would ultimately lead to forced removal.
As we close Part One, we sit with the beauty of what once was—and prepare, in Part Two, to hear what happened when that village was suddenly torn apart.

[Music rises]

HOST (outro):
Thanks for listening to The Harbor Area Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend. If there’s a hidden gem you want me to uncover next, send me a message.
I’m Joel Torrez. Until next time, be good to each other—and be good to the water that connects us all.

[Music out]