The authors of “Terminal Island: Lost Communities on America’s Edge,” Naomi Hirahara and Geraldine Knatz, will give a presentation on Sunday, May 19, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Los Angeles Public Library, Taper Auditorium, 630 W Fifth St., Los Angeles.
Few Angelenos have visited Terminal Island, a sheltered spot off the coast of San Pedro that once served as a resort for wealthy Southern California landowners and a refuge for its artists, writers, and scientists. Commercial and economic changes reshaped the island, turning it into another thriving community of Japanese families involved in the fishing industry.
And then came a war that not only devastated the existing community, it erased half a century of the social and cultural narrative of the island.
In conjunction with their recently republished Angel City Press book, Hirahara and Knatz will explore this lost history, focusing on two distinct eras and providing insights into a lost history of an island that is now home to the largest commercial port in the U.S.
Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple traditional mystery series and noir short stories. Her Mas Arai mysteries, also published in Japanese, Korean, and French, feature a Los Angeles gardener and Hiroshima survivor who solves crimes. Her first historical mystery, “Clark and Division,” which won a Mary Higgins Clark Award, follows a Japanese American family’s move to Chicago in 1944 after being released from a California “war relocation center.”
A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo, Hirahara has also written numerous non-fiction history books and curated exhibitions. In addition, she has written a middle-grade novel, “1001 Cranes.” Her follow-up to “Clark and Division,” “Evergreen,” was released in August 2023 and was on the USA Today bestseller list for two weeks.
In a career that spanned 37 years at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, Knatz advanced to various leadership positions and was named executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, America’s largest container port. She is the first woman to have served in this role. At its helm for eight years, Knatz showcased the port’s historic resources during its year-long Centennial Celebration in 2007, ensuring that century-old photographs, maps, and documents were preserved for future generations.
The author of two regional histories, “Long Beach’s Los Cerritos” and “Port of Los Angeles: Conflict, Commerce and the Fight for Control,” Knatz is currently a professor of practice at the University of Southern California, a joint appointment between the USC Price School of Public Policy and the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
For ADA accommodations, call (213) 228-7430 at least 72 hours prior to the event.
For more information on library events, including those celebrating AAPI Heritage Month, go to: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/calendar