"Focusing her Gateway to Pacific on the development of the city’s Japanese Cultural and Trade Center, Meredith Oda offers a compelling account of the key role that Japanese-Americans played in cultivating San Francisco’s social, economic, and political interconnectedness with Asia."
— A. J. Jacobs, Journal of Urban Affairs
"The value of this work is greatly enhanced by the author’s voluminous original research in conducting her study, including letters, newspaper and magazine articles, archival municipal evidence, records of interviews by and about major figures, and records of city missions toJapan. The vast quantity of pertinent primary materials uncovered permits the author to demonstrate the step-by-step evolution of the relationship between San Francisco and Japan and the critical role that Japanese Americans played in this process."
— California History
“The Gateway to the Pacific is a superb work of urban, social, Japanese American, and transpacific history. . . . It is an excellent example of how a local history serves as a window into national and global dynamics.”
— The American Historical Reveiw
"The Gateway to the Pacific significantly adds to the scholarship on postwar urban and planning history. Oda successfully demonstrates the importance of global perspectives to our understanding of U.S. cities during this period. A thoughtful and compelling study, The Gateway to the Pacific serves as a model for urban and planning historians, showing the generative possibilities of working at multiple scales and integrating broader transpacific dynamics with the contours of everyday life."
— Planning Perspectives
"A book perfectly suited to the moment in the Bay Area . . . Lucid, timely, and brilliantly reasoned, The Gateway to the Pacific is a welcome addition to the historiographies of California, U.S. cities, and transpacific culture."
— Southern California Quarterly