Ken Nakaoka, who later became Gardena's mayor, was instrumental in brokering deals with Japanese companies like Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Sapporo to set up headquarters and distribution centers in the city. The community flourished after WWII as numerous Japanese Americans moved into business and politics. After the war, many Japanese Americans settled in cities throughout Los Angeles County, like Gardena, where they applied their horticultural expertise. This came to an halt during World War II, when 10,000 Japanese Americans in Southern California were interned in concentration camps, decimating the thriving Japanese American population in these areas. It was one of the few areas in Los Angeles County where immigrant farmers were allowed to lease land, a boon for Japanese immigrants who began working Gardena's berry farms in the early 1900s.īy the 1940s, Gardena and surrounding cities like Torrance and Long Beach had become hubs of the local Japanese American community. Ground zero for Hawaiian cuisine is the South Bay. That's why you can go to a Hawaiian restaurant and order Portuguese sausage, fried noodles with char-sui or kimchi fried rice with a side of chicken katsu, and it'll all come with a scoop of mayo-drenched macaroni salad. It's also the guiding principle that animates the cuisine, a literal and figurative melting pot of flavors from China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Portugal.
It's a greeting among friends and a reminder to view people we don't know as kindred spirits. The spirit of aloha shapes almost every facet of Hawaiian life.
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