Cyntia Aviña, ethnic studies teacher and member of the Community Self-Defense Coalition.
By J.K. YAMAMOTO
RAFU SHIMPO
Japanese Americans and residents of the Los Angeles Harbor area gathered June 27 at the Japanese Fishing Village Memorial on Terminal Island to denounce use of the island by federal immigration authorities participating in mass raids on local communities.
The memorial, dedicated in 2002, commemorates Terminal Island’s once-thriving Japanese American community, which was wiped out when the residents were forcibly removed in 1942 and incarcerated at Manzanar and other camps. Most of the buildings were demolished, so Terminal Islanders had to resettle elsewhere after the war.
Pastor Joshua “Yoshi” Kuramoto of San Pedro United Methodist Church, noted, “This place where we stand is a historically Japanese American fishing village, and I was born in a place called Minamata, Japan, which is also a small fishing village. The universe has its ways of bringing us together.”
Opening the press conference with a prayer, he said, “May You allow the historical cries of ancestors who once resided in this place to speak to us through the wind and the waves of the sea, so that we may confidently join their memories to resist injustice …
“These days we have seen great evils, and the participants named ICE are stationed here as an abomination against history. Speak to the better parts of their hearts to change their will so they may see the humanity in the faces of families they’re actively tearing apart.”
Speaking as “a proud descendant of Japanese American ancestry,” Maya Suzuki Daniels, a San Pedro teacher and a member of the UTLA Harbor Area Steering Committee, said, “It is this lineage that compels me to stand in front of you today and say ‘No ICE on Terminal Island.’ My grandfather was born in Los Angeles in 1920. In 1942, he joined the U.S. military. During the time of his service, his relatives were moved into internment camps in Arizona. My family understands what forced displacement and mass incarceration looks like.
“My grandfather is the one who taught me to stand up for values of peace, justice, equality, and compassion. Living in San Pedro, I have seen how neighbors stand up for each other when someone is ill, when someone is struggling, or when people are scared. San Pedro is a community born out of immigration — Croatian, Italian and Mexican migrants moving to make their lives and blend their cultures in our hamlet by the sea. We protect each other and we defend this slice of Los Angeles.
“My experiences in San Pedro and my love for this community led me to organize the Harbor Area Peace Patrol, a group of neighbors, parents, educators, and concerned citizens. With the support of San Pedro Neighbors for Peace & Justice and the Community Self-Defense Coalition, we are peaceful and law abiding citizens who monitor ICE activities in our neighborhoods and educate our neighbors about their constitutional rights. We are greatly disturbed by the use of Terminal Island, a place already haunted by legacies of displacement and discrimination, to carry out this wave of terror in our city.”
Terminal Islanders’ Testimonies
Joy Yamaguchi of Little Tokyo-based Nikkei Progressives said, “My grandmother actually lived on, worked on a farm less than 10 miles from here in Harbor City before being forced during World War II into the American concentration camps. And so while my family wasn’t from Terminal Island, they too had their lives ripped away from them because of what was later acknowledged by the U.S. government as race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. So when I and other Japanese Americans heard that ICE was using this area … right in front of me as a staging ground for agents to go out and kidnap community members, again, we were appalled …
“Terminal Island was once a vibrant community from the 1800s until World War II, at one point reaching 3,000 Japanese immigrants. While the physical community was displaced, to this day Terminal Islanders continued to speak out, to preserve their history, with this monument behind me being a testament to their dedication and their resilience.
“In the testimonies that the Terminal Islanders made in the 1980s to the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians during our community’s fight for redress … Terminal Islanders recalled the fear from the sudden and invasive presence of government agents immediately following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Because of racist fear of Japanese espionage, never proven, along the coast and the isolated community’s proximity to a naval shipyard, first-generation Japanese American men were among the first to be rounded up by the FBI, an action that was justified using these same Alien Enemies Act that Trump used this year to deport migrants illegally.
“Almost all of the fathers were taken away, leaving families who had no idea when they would be reunited. In his testimony, Mas Tanibata recalled seeing a mother with five children just sitting down and crying. Henry Murakami talked about how he was a fisherman who was denied access to his boat, his livelihood. In February 1942, he was picked up by the FBI, who would not even allow him to put on his shoes and dragged him out with his zori, his sandals, on. He ended up in Bismarck, North Dakota in 30-degrees-below-zero weather, forced to leave behind a pregnant wife and his children.
“Kuniko Saito, a teenager, testified that she carried her birth certificate with her to go to high school in Terminal Island to prove that she was a citizen. So circumstances change, but if you think that this all sounds eerily familiar to this moment, so do we.”
Yamaguchi concluded, “We speak out in defense of those who are being targeted now, not just because our families needed allies … during World War II, but because it is the right thing to do and we believe in dignity and human rights for all and the right to due process regardless of immigration or citizenship status … Nikkei Progressives believes that we must struggle in solidarity with others for a more just society.”
Grandfather’s Story
John Tonai, a digital specialist at the Japanese American National Museum, talked about his family history. “Terminal Island represented what my grandfather Gengoro was hoping to find when he immigrated here from Japan … An opportunity to create a new life for himself, to work hard and raise a family. It represented his American Dream … the same as the migrants who who are being rounded up and incarcerated today. My grandfather eventually left the fishing industry and started a chain of produce stands, and so he moved his family off Terminal Island into San Pedro.
“It was there in the summer of 1941 that he was first visited by FBI agents. The next time they visited him was the evening of Dec. 7, 1941, when they ripped him away from his family and sent him — a man who had done nothing wrong — to be jailed in a series of prison camps run by the Department of Justice. He would not see his family again for another three years …
“Today, ICE is going around and arresting people for doing the same thing as my grandparents — trying to make a better life for themselves. Some people will argue that it isn’t the same because my grandparents were here legally. If that’s the case, why were they incarcerated? If they hadn’t done anything wrong, then why was my grandfather separated from his family for three years? If they hadn’t done anything wrong, why did they have to lose most of their possessions and be forced to live in what were essentially prison camps? … The answer you always heard then, and hear now, is it’s national security.
“The undocumented people are being arrested and deported because they’re murderers and drug dealers? No, the woman selling fruit from a street cart … is not a drug dealer. She just wants to feed her family. The men picking strawberries in Oxnard and Orange County fields are not serial killers. They’re not dangerous fentanyl dealers. Dishwashers, cooks, meat processing plant employees, day workers, gardeners, housekeepers — they all just want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Think about these jobs for a second. Now imagine what their life is like in their country of origin to travel hundreds of miles, risk being robbed or killed, risk being arrested, in order to get a difficult, low-paying job. They’re not here for easy money. They’re not here to cause problems. They just want a chance.
“We stand here today to protest these heartless policies of our federal government and their enforcement by ICE within a stone’s throw of the fishing village that was filled with law-abiding, hard-working people.”
A Thriving Community
Carrie Furuya Morita, a member of Nikkei Progressives and a retired LAUSD teacher, comes from a family of fishermen. “Chicken of the Sea, Bumblebee Tuna, StarKist are all names from my childhood,” she recalled, “for I am the granddaughter, daughter and niece of men who spent months at a time out at sea as commercial tuna fishermen. My uncle was a union rep for the Japanese American fishermen as part of a larger union here on Terminal Island. Although I did not grow up here … I grew up in another community of tuna fishing in San Diego, appropriately called Tunaville.
“My father would be gone for months at a time, sometimes traveling to the tip of South America or north to Oregon and Washington, but often unloading fish right here at Terminal Island … Men held back-breaking jobs that many would not do. I’ve seen the photos of men throwing their poles back and forth in a rhythmic motion. I’ve had friends … who are fishermen who like to go up to Mammoth and catch trout. Sometimes they even tell me, ‘I caught a seven-pound fish.’ Try comparing that to one man pulling in a tuna that could weigh half a ton …
“Terminal Island was once this thriving community with restaurants, shops, community centers, and home to many … This community came to a screeching halt when the government arrested its 3,000 residents and sent them to America’s concentration camps out in the Arizona desert, far from the beloved ocean … They were feared to be communicating with Japan, although no Japanese or Japanese Americans were ever found to be guilty of any kind of espionage.
“Today our government is once again destroying the lives of many families and tearing apart immigrant communities, ignoring the history of what took place here. Currently, ICE agents are using this island as a home base for their operations in L.A. … My grandfather was arrested days after Pearl Harbor and was sent to the Lordsburg POW camp in New Mexico, where he was separated from his family for the duration of the war. We must speak out against history repeating itself.”
Solidarity and Kinship
Cyntia Aviña, an ethnic studies teacher and a member of the Community Self-Defense Coalition and the Association of Raza Educators, said, “The Community Self-Defense Coalition is a multi-ethnic, multi-racial coalition that has not only shown up at ICE raids in the Latino community, but also raids in Asian and African diasporic communities as well. We believe that we must continue to fight for ethnic studies and against censorship of educators. Youth need to know these histories, like that of the vibrant Terminal Island fishing village that was nearly decimated…
“This history is important not only to the descendants of those who are shamelessly incarcerated, but also to every American who needs to be informed by the truth every day as they make decisions about how they relate to the Japanese American community and all Asian American communities in general. We must understand one another in order to build solidarity and kinship. The histories of Japanese Americans and all Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are intertwined with Chicano, Latino, Indigenous and the Black diaspora peoples. Our stories are rooted in resistance and resilience, and we are seeing this so clearly today.”
An “ICE Off Terminal Island” community vigil was held that evening at 6th Street and Harbor Boulevard in San Pedro, followed on June 28 by a South Bay rally against the Trump Administration’s policies on Harbor between 3rd and 6th streets.