1970's (Paul and Vicky Murakami)

1974

Film Chinatown (dir. Roman Polanski) features Nisei actor Jerry Fujikawa as a Japanese gardener who plays a pivotal plot role.
1976

Pacific Coast Chapter of the California Landscape Contractors Association established so that Japanese-speaking contractors can network and learn about current issues in the industry.

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Paul and Vicky Murakami

In this picture, Paul Murakami holds niece Vicky Murakami in Los Angeles, California, in 1972. This picture was a gift to the Japanese American National Museum, from Fred Murakami (2007.30.3)

This picture is part of the Landscaping America:Beyond the Japanese Garden exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, which will run from June 17, 2007 until October 21, 2007. To learn more about Landscaping America, please visit the Japanese American National Museum website.

Copyright is held by the Japanese American National Museum. Short-term educational use with limited circulation is permitted. For all other uses, please contact the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org)

1980's (Women' s Auxilliary - Los Angeles Southwest Gardeners' Association)

1981

Cherry-tree cuttings from Washington, D.C. Tidal Basin are given to Japanese horticulturalists to replace trees destroyed by flood in Japan.
1984

The Karate Kid (dir. John G. Avildsen) features Nisei actor Pat Morita in role of gardener and martial arts instructor.
1988

President Ronald Reagan signs into law H.R. 442, which provides governmental apology and monetary reparations for Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II.
In subsequent years, Japanese-style gardens are built in many West Coast communities to memorialize the World War II experiences of Japanese Americans.

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Women' s Auxilliary - Los Angeles Southwest Gardeners' Association

This is the Women’s Auxilliary of the Los Angeles Southwest Gardeners Association, 1982. It is part of the collection of the Southern California Gardeners’ Federation (17.2007.1A)

This picture is part of the Landscaping America:Beyond the Japanese Garden exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, which will run from June 17, 2007 until October 21, 2007. To learn more about Landscaping America, please visit the Japanese American National Museum website.

Copyright is held by the Japanese American National Museum. Short-term educational use with limited circulation is permitted. For all other uses, please contact the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org)

1960's (Morimoto's in Santa Ana)

Early 1960s

Chevrolet develops a pick-up truck model specifically for gardeners with a built-in ramp and tool case. It never catches on—as most gardeners prefer to customize their storage rigs themselves.
1961

Northwest Federated Japanese Gardeners Conference created by Seattle Japanese Gardeners Association and Vancouver Japanese Gardeners Association.
1964

“The Encounter,” an episode of the TV series The Twilight Zone, features Nisei actor George Takei playing role of a troubled Japanese American gardener. The episode airs only once due to controversial content.
1965

Immigration Act abolishes national-origins quota system. Large numbers of Asian immigrants enter the U.S.

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Morimoto's in Santa Ana

This picture features Sugi and Sakami Morimoto in front of a garden in Santa Ana, California, in 1964. The picture was a gift to the Japanese American National Museum, from the Morimoto Family (92.128.17)

This picture is part of the Landscaping America:Beyond the Japanese Garden exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, which will run from June 17, 2007 until October 21, 2007. To learn more about Landscaping America, please visit the Japanese American National Museum website.

Copyright is held by the Japanese American National Museum. Short-term educational use with limited circulation is permitted. For all other uses, please contact the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org)

Hoshiko Yamaguchi's Favorite Pine Tree (Pine Tree)

This black pine tree is Hoshiko Yamaguchi's favorite, a pine tree she plantd back in 1956.

In 1946, Nisei Hoshiko and her husband Eisaku Yamaguchi left the Tule Lake Segregation Center in California with their four children. The family spent the next decade working as farm laborers before purchasing property in 1956 on which Hoshiko planted a handful of black pine seeds that had been sent by her father, who operated a nursery in Hiroshima, Japan.

Starting out in wooden flats, the seedlings were transplanted into the ground after one year. Some were potted and cultivated as miniature trees. Most were moved to areas with more space, where after decades they developed into an impressive grove of full-sized trees. Over the years, all of the trees were “trained” through a process involving the manipulation of their limbs with copper wire and regular seasonal shaping.

Because black pine cannot be imported as trees into North America, this nursery may be the only place in the United States where a volume of mature trees can be obtained. As such, the trees have been transported for planting in landscapes as far away and as diverse as Washington, Arizona, and Connecticut. Trees from these few acres of land now grow in the yards of the Yamaguchis’ children and neighbors as well as on multimillion-dollar estates and in public botanic gardens.

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Pine Tree

This is Hoshiko Yamaguchi’s favorite pine tree, photographed in 2007. The photograph was taken by Peter Tolkin.

This picture is part of the Landscaping America:Beyond the Japanese Garden exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, which will run from June 17, 2007 until October 21, 2007. To learn more about Landscaping America, please visit the Japanese American National Museum website.

Copyright is held by the Japanese American National Museum. Short-term educational use with limited circulation is permitted. For all other uses, please contact the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org)

1950's (Gardening in Redondo Beach)

1950

U.S. officially enters Korean War.
1952

McCarran-Walter Act makes all races eligible for naturalization and establishes a national-origins quota system for all immigrants. Many Japanese immigrants are finally able to apply for U.S. citizenship.
In Fujii v. State of California, California Supreme Court rules Alien Land Law unconstitutional.

1953

Refugee Relief Act passes, extending refugee status to non-Europeans. Japanese victims of natural disasters are able to enter U.S. under this act. Many Japanese workers enter gardening to finance family’s move to U.S.
1954

The “Japanese Exhibition House” opens at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The third in “The House in the Museum Garden” series, it is chosen because the design is associated with American modernist architecture. More than 120,000 visitors view it before it is moved for permanent installation at Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park.
1955

Maloney Bill, requiring state licensing of maintenance gardeners, introduced to California State Assembly. Though not adopted, it prompts statewide political mobilization of gardeners on both sides of issue.
Southern California Gardeners’ Federation founded, primarily to organize Japanese American gardeners in opposition to Maloney Bill.

Northern California Gardeners’ Association founded in response to Maloney Bill. It is later renamed Professional Gardeners’ Federation of Northern California.

1956

“Sister City” movement launched by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to forge ties with communities abroad. In 2007, U.S. has more “Sister-City” relations with Japan than any other country. These relationships are often commemorated with Japanese-style gardens.
Japanese farm labor program, or tanno program, enables influx of Japanese agricultural workers to California on three-year contracts. Those workers who are able to settle permanently in the U.S. take up gardening. The program ends abruptly in 1965 when U.S. Department of Labor adopts new labor policy designed to restrict entry of Mexican migrant workers.

1958

Nisei Hideo Sasaki from Reedley, California, begins 18-year tenure as the Chairman of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Sasaki reflects the trend of Nisei, and later Sansei, with agriculture and gardening backgrounds moving into design professions.
1959

The Japanese Gardeners Club founded in Vancouver, Canada. It is later renamed Vancouver Japanese Gardeners Association.
To see more photographs from the 1950's, please see:

Murakami Brothers

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Gardening in Redondo Beach

The men pictured here are Chiyokichi Yamanaka, Kenzo and Tom Nakawatase in Redondo Beach, California, ca. 1950. This picture was a gift to the Japanese American National Museum, from Midori Uyeda (2007.37.1)

This picture is part of the Landscaping America:Beyond the Japanese Garden exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, which will run from June 17, 2007 until October 21, 2007. To learn more about Landscaping America, please visit the Japanese American National Museum website.

Copyright is held by the Japanese American National Museum. Short-term educational use with limited circulation is permitted. For all other uses, please contact the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org)

1940's (Japanese American Students Withdraw)

1941

Japan attacks U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawai`i, prompting U.S. entry into World War II.
1942

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing forced removal and incarceration of West Coast Japanese Americans in concentration camps.
After only one month in the camps, Japanese American inmates under take individual and community landscaping projects. Thousands of gardens are built throughout all of the camps.

During the war, many Japanese gardens are vandalized. Others are renamed and labeled as “Oriental” or Chinese gardens.

1944

Over 5,500 Japanese Americans renounce their U.S. citizenship under duress and due to disillusion caused by their forced removal and incarceration. Some are deported to Japan in 1945.
Attorney Wayne Collins files a suit that eventually restores citizenship in most of these cases.

1945

Japanese Americans are permitted to return to West Coast. Gardening is an accessible occupation during the resettlement period, and at times the only options.
Post-war gardening ranks are also increased by return to West Coast of many “renunciants” as well as Kibei, who had been living in Japan for various reasons.

1949

Organized labor targets Japanese maintenance gardeners, considered an expanding working-class niche. A group of Southern California gardeners, pressured by rubbish-disposal and trucking lockouts, reluctantly joins Local 399 of Service Employees International Union.
To see more photographs from the 1940's, please see:

Sitting on a Truck

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Japanese American Students Withdraw

Theodore Roosevelt Senior High School newspaper announces the withdrawal of its Japanese American students, Los Angeles, 1942. This picture is courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt Senior High School (NRC.2002.27.8)

This picture is part of the Landscaping America:Beyond the Japanese Garden exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, which will run from June 17, 2007 until October 21, 2007. To learn more about Landscaping America, please visit the Japanese American National Museum website.

Copyright is held by the Japanese American National Museum. Short-term educational use with limited circulation is permitted. For all other uses, please contact the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org)

1800's-1910's (Nippon Nursery, Pasadena)

1854
U.S. and Japan sign treaty forcing opening of Japanese ports to American ships and starting limited trade.

1876
First Japanese garden in U.S. presented by Japanese government at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition at Fairmount Park.

1882
Chinese Exclusion Act bars immigration of Chinese laborers, setting stage for subsequent legislation curtailing immigration and rights of all people of Asian ancestry.

1891
The Issei, Japanese immigrants, begin careers in yard care.

1893
Josiah Conder’s Landscape Gardening in Japan provides the first detailed information on Japanese gardens for Western audiences.

World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, features Japanese exhibit halls and displays, including a garden. The Japanese government, eager to present itself as an emerging power, is the first foreign nation to commit to participation in the event.

1894
U.S. District Court ruling determines that Japanese immigrants cannot become citizens because they are not "free white" persons.

The Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park created for Japanese Village exhibit at the California Midwinter International Exposition. A year later, Issei businessman Makoto Hagiwara moves into the garden. He and his family serve as its caretakers until 1942.

1900
First large-scale anti-Japanese protest in California organized by labor groups in San Francisco.

Japonisme/Japanism, the Western vogue for things Japanese, spreads throughout much of Europe and the United States.

1904
American Federation of Labor sets policy to exclude Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese from membership.

Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, includes Japanese Village and Imperial Garden display.

1905
Asiatic Exclusion League formed in San Francisco.

1907-08
The U.S.-Japan Gentlemen’s Agreement takes effect. The U.S. promises to end segregation of Japanese students in San Francisco schools. Japan agrees to halt unrestricted emigration of its citizens into U.S.

1912
Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo gives 3,000 cherry trees to Washington D.C. to represent friendship between the U.S. and Japan.

1913
First of Alien Land Laws adopted in California, prohibiting “aliens ineligible to citizenship” from owning land in state.

1914
On land bequeathed by Hawai`i's last monarch Queen Lili`uokalani for public use, Lili`uokalani Park and Gardens (a.k.a. Japanese Park) is developed in Hilo, Hawai`i, by Mrs. C.C. Kennedy after her visit to Kyoto, Japan.

1915
Japanese government participates in San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition, building an Imperial Garden, despite their discontent over 1913 Alien Land Law.

Japanese Friendship Garden at Balboa Park, San Diego, opens as part of Panama-California Exposition.

Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, designed by Issei Takeo Shiota, opens at Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York. Shiota prolifically designed gardens on the East Coast before World War II.

1918
The motion picture The Bravest Way (dir. George Melford) features Issei actor Sessue Hayakawa as a landscape gardener.

Issei artist Kimi Jingu helps design Japanese Tea Gardens (a.k.a. Japanese Sunken Gardens) in Brackenridge Park in San Antonio, Texas. His family lives there until 1942.

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Nippon Nursery, Pasadena

These men are in front of the Nippon Nursery in Pasadena, California, ca. 1915. The business was founded in 1905 by three Issei. This picture was a gift to the Japanese American National Museum, from the Wakiji Family (95.128.3)

In the 1940's, Pasadena had over 17 Japanese-owned florists and nurseries. The Nippon Nursery was the first.

This picture is part of the Landscaping America: Beyond the Japanese Garden exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, which will run from June 17, 2007 until October 21, 2007. To learn more about Landscaping America, please visit the Japanese American National Museum website.

Copyright is held by the Japanese American National Museum. Short-term educational use with limited circulation is permitted. For all other uses, please contact the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org)

1930's (Japanese Tea Garden)

1933
Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago displays Japanese Garden and Pavilion, designed by Issei Taro Otsuka, a garden builder based in the Midwest.

1934
One-third of Los Angeles’s Japanese American labor force work as gardeners.

1935
American writer Loraine Kuck’s book One Hundred Kyoto Gardens is published and coins the term “Zen garden” to describe rock gardens.

1937
Issei Shogi Nagumo establishes the League of Southern California Japanese Gardeners.

1938
The book Gardens in the Modern Landscape by Christopher Tunnard highlights Japanese gardens as a model for contemporary garden design.

1939
World’s fairs at Treasure Island, California, and New York feature Japanese garden displays. Nisei Kaneji Domoto helps install the Japanese gardens at both fairs. After working in his family’s Northern California nursery and studying at Berkeley, he begins a long career that includes working with Frank Lloyd Wright and receiving the 1983 Frederick Law Olmsted Award for his redesign of the Japanese garden at Chicago’s Jackson Park.

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Japanese Tea Garden

This is a Japanese Tea Garden postcard from the Golden Gate International Exposition at Treasure Island, 1939. It was a gift to the Japanese American National Museum, from Francis and Gloria Massimo (97.77)

The Golden Gate International Exposition celebrated the opening of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay (Bay Bridge) Bridge in 1936, as well as the opening of the Golden Gate Bridege in 1937.

This picture is part of the Landscaping America: Beyond the Japanese Garden exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, which will run from June 17, 2007 until October 21, 2007. To learn more about Landscaping America, please visit the Japanese American National Museum website.

Copyright is held by the Japanese American National Museum. Short-term educational use with limited circulation is permitted. For all other uses, please contact the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org)

Shogo Myaida, 1930 (Shogo Myaida)

Shogo Myaida was an Issei, and a garden designer both before and after World War II. One of his best public works is the Japanese-style garden at the Hillwood Estates, Museum and Gardens in Washington, D.C. To read more about his life, please view the original item.
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Shogo Myaida

This is Shogo Myaida, ca. 1930. This picture was a gift to the Japanese American National Museum, from Francis and Gloria Massimo (97.77.274E)

With extensive horticultural training in Japan, Europe, and the United States, Shogo J. Myaida (1897-1989), an Issei garden designer, successfully incorporated both European and Japanese gardening principles into American landscapes. In the 1920s, after participating in an Ohio State University landscape architecture summer institute in Europe, he settled in the United States. Based in New York, he designed numerous public and residential landscapes on the East Coast. His early projects included the landscaping of a girls summer camp and the 1939 New York World’s Fair Japanese Pavilion gardens.

When the anti-Japanese sentiment of World War II abruptly ended the popularity of anything linked with Japanese culture, Myaida found employment in a nursery. In the late 1950s, Japanese-style gardens experienced a renaissance in the United States, and Myaida successfully reestablished his professional landscape career, creating gardens that were neither entirely Japanese nor Western. The Japanese-style garden at the Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens in Washington, D.C. remains as one of the best public examples of his work.

This picture is part of the Landscaping America: Beyond the Japanese Garden exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, which will run from June 17, 2007 until October 21, 2007. To learn more about Landscaping America, please visit the Japanese American National Museum website.

Copyright is held by the Japanese American National Museum. Short-term educational use with limited circulation is permitted. For all other uses, please contact the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org)

1920's (Miami Beach Nursery)

1920
California’s new Alien Land Law prohibits Japanese immigrants from owning or leasing land. Many leave agricultural work and take up gardening in urban areas.

Japanese Exclusion League of California organized in San Francisco.

1922
U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Ozawa v. U.S. definitively bars Japanese immigrants from naturalization on basis of race.

1924
Immigration Act halts Japanese immigration to U.S.

1925
A group of Japanese American gardeners organizes in Riverside, California.

1927
Seattle Japanese Gardeners Association established with group of 25 gardeners.

1929
U.S. stock market crash brings financial ruin for thousands and ushers in the Great Depression.

To view more photographs from the 1920's, please see:

Eight Men, Eight Lawnmowers
Anti-Japanese Sign
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Miami Beach Nursery

This is a picture of Shigezo and Chotaro Tashiro of Miami Beach Nurseries in Florida, ca. 1922. It was a gift to the Japanese American National Museum, from the Tashiro Family (93.63.18)

This picture is part of the Landscaping America:Beyond the Japanese Garden exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum, which will run from June 17, 2007 until October 21, 2007. To learn more about Landscaping America, please visit the Japanese American National Museum website.

Copyright is held by the Japanese American National Museum. Short-term educational use with limited circulation is permitted. For all other uses, please contact the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org)