Meet Tim Thomas

Not featured in the film, but served as a Monterey Bay, CA local and fisheries historian informant on this project.

Tim Thomas, a fourth-generation Monterey local, is passionate about red abalone and its impacts on local Monterey history and economy. He is an active community member and fishery historian as well as curator of the Monterey Maritime and History Museum. Tim’s most resent curation project has been the local Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) Museum which focuses heavily on historic Japanese fishing in the Monterey area. In this museum you will find displays of old creations from Worlds Fairs that incorporated red abalone, old diving gear used by the Japanese individuals who came to Monterey for the once abundant red abalone, as well as information on internment camps and the racist policies which were established to prohibited the exportation of dried abalone (a common item sent back to Japan in the early 1900s). In this museum and in his book “The Abalone King of Monterey: ‘Pop’ Ernest Doelter” Tim also details the introduction of ‘Pop” Ernest Doelter’s abalone preparation techniques in local kitchens which revived the economy for local Japanese immigrants to survive on. Tim has a wealth of knowledge on this topic, especially as it relates to the local Monterey Area. 

Link to “The Abalone King of Monterey: ‘Pop’ Ernest Doelter”: https://www.amazon.com/Abalone-King-Monterey-Pioneering-Fishermen/dp/1609494695 

Link to the JACL of Monterey Peninsula: https://jaclmonterey.org/