Terminal Island’s last Japanese American buildings are under threat

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.

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.”

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.

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.”