The day often starts much earlier than people think, along the Californian coast. While storefronts remain closed and waterfront promenades are still quiet, working boats return to their moorings and crews sort their catch into crates while spreading nets along the docks to dry; for more than a century, routines like these shaped daily life in several Pacific ports, and many of them owe their form to immigrants who had already learned their trade on the shores of their homeland’s seas.
Among them were many Italian fishermen whose experience in the Mediterranean influenced how fish were caught, handled, and ultimately distributed throughout the region.
