LUA KOBAYASHI

Furusato: Home Sweet Home is a public artwork consisting of two parallel crosswalks at 6th Street and Mesa Street in the San Pedro Waterfront Arts District, created in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles, Wellington Signs, and members of the Terminal Island community.

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The work draws from the history of Terminal Island, a Japanese American fishing community that once flourished along the San Pedro waterfront. Before World War II, Japanese American families built their lives around the ocean and played a major role in establishing the tuna fishing industry in Southern California through innovative fishing techniques. The community was forcibly removed and incarcerated during World War II, and the neighborhood they had built was never restored.

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The design and colors are inspired by koinobori, carp streamers traditionally displayed during Japan’s Boys’ Day celebrations, and gyotaku, the Japanese practice of fish printing. The title, Furusato, is a Japanese word for a hometown or place deeply connected to a sense of belonging and home, and was also an affectionate nickname for Terminal Island.

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The project is personal as well - My great-grandfather, Fusataro Fujimoto, immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s and worked as a fish peddler in San Pedro. His story is one of many family histories that connects me to this place.

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Throughout the process, I also learned from people whose families lived on Terminal Island. Hearing their stories reminded me that history is not only held in museums and archives - it lives in neighborhoods, objects, family memories, and the places people continue to return to.

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The crosswalk is meant to be encountered as part of everyday life. I hope that, as people walk across it, they become curious about the history of Terminal Island and the community that once lived there. In this way, Furusato: Home Sweet Home acts as both a bridge between past and present and a small public marker of a community whose history continues to shape San Pedro.