It took decades to build a thriving fishing village. It only took 48 hours to erase it.
February 25, 1942: Terminal Island’s Japanese American residents were given just 48 hours to leave.
Terminal Island sat nestled between San Pedro and Long Beach — a small stretch of land in Los Angeles Harbor. It was home to a close-knit community of Japanese immigrants and their American-born children, many of whom came from Wakayama Prefecture in Japan.
They were master fishermen, brought to the U.S. for their skill. They built boats, hauled in tuna, mended nets. They raised families. Started businesses. Opened schools.
They even developed a unique local dialect — part Japanese, part English, part pure Terminal Island.
It was a world unto itself.
AP Photo / Los Angeles Times
Cannery workers on Terminal Island continue their routines in early 1942, unaware that eviction orders and mass removal were only weeks away.
Courtesy of Angel City Press
Sardine fishermen on Terminal Island. By the early 1940s, families on Terminal Island had helped turn the harbor into one of the most productive fishing centers in California.
Students at Terminal Island Elementary School, where many children from the Japanese fishing village spent their earliest years. Within days, they would be gone.
Courtesy of Angel City Press
Japanese immigrant labor and expertise helped transform Terminal Island into one of the most productive fishing and canning centers on the Pacific Coast.
Courtesy of San Pedro Bay Historical Society
Terminal Island’s Japanese village, also known as Furusato, “hometown,” a tightly knit waterfront community of homes, canneries, schools, churches, and fishing businesses.
Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration
Pearl Harbor was thousands of miles away. Its consequences arrived here by morning. By December 8, 1941, the fishing village was already under curfew.
Terminal Island shops and cafés owned by Japanese American residents were ordered shut on December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor.
Courtesy of the UCLA Library
December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor. The Japanese fishing village was living under a cloud of fear as rumors, military patrols, and uncertainty.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Plainclothes officers arrest Japanese men on Terminal Island on February 3, 1942, as the federal roundup of Issei leaders and fishermen intensified.
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor changed everything overnight.
By the next morning, military police were already moving through Terminal Island. Japanese-owned shops were shut down, and federal agents began arresting Issei fishermen, business owners, and other community leaders almost immediately.
The men who had built the village’s economy were suddenly gone.
For the families left behind, the weeks that followed were filled with fear, rumors, and the growing sense that something even worse was coming.
“Evacuation”
Then came February 25, 1942.
That was the day Terminal Island’s Japanese American residents were given just 48 hours to leave.
No trials. No accusations. Just a notice on a wall.
They were told to pack what they could carry. Some abandoned their homes. Others left behind fishing boats that had taken years to build. Military police roamed the streets. Children cried. Parents kept packing.
Neighbors said goodbye — not knowing it would be forever.
The final residents of Terminal Island being forcibly removed by the U.S. military. Many were given only days to abandon homes, businesses, and belongings.
Courtesy of Angel City Press
For the youngest residents of Furusato, the destruction of the fishing village meant watching home turn into luggage almost overnight.
Courtesy of the Japanese American National Museum
The staff of Terminal Island’s popular Mio Café pose outside one of Furusato’s best-known gathering places in the harbor community.
Sohei and Kinuko Yamamoto stand with their three children inside the grocery store they owned on Terminal Island.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Beyond the harbor’s canneries and storefronts, the community built sacred spaces that anchored memory, tradition, and belonging for immigrant families.
Reverend Shinkichi Miyoshi prepares to leave the Terminal Island Shinto shrine after 40 years of service to the community.
Gone Forever
Shortly after the families were forced out, the U.S. Navy bulldozed their homes to the ground. They claimed it was for “security.”
They didn’t just remove the people — they erased the neighborhood.
When the war ended and survivors were finally allowed to return, there was nothing left to return to.
No homes. No boats. No village.
What took generations to create was destroyed in two days. Forever.
Erased, Not Forgotten
The crime? Being Japanese.
Terminal Island wasn’t just a community. It was a symbol of what Japanese immigrants had built in America — and how quickly it could all be taken away.
They tried to erase it from history.
But we will not forget.
Cannery workers walked through Terminal Island before the village’s forced removal. The homes and streets may be gone, but the community they built shouldn't be forgotten.
Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration
Within days, the fishing village had been transformed from one of the West Coast’s most vibrant Japanese communities into a ghost town.
Today the memorial serves as a reminder of the once-thriving fishing village, and its forced evacuation