Nonetheless, Japanese American farmers were highly successful despite law restrictions. They would lease or buy small plots of land, and specialize in crops that were labor-intensive. Japanese farmers grew produce such as raised bunch vegetables. (I.e., carrots, green onions, turnips, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, also a few farmers grew cantaloupes, strawberries and potatoes).

"(We)usually had about 15 acres and we grew carrots and green onions and cabbage... and once we had some potatoes and cucumbers."

~ Mary Oda
--
Kawakami Flower Ranch

Image Contributed by: Jane Muranaka

Names of people:

Date: early 1950s

Place: Kawakami Ranch in Sunland, California

Photograph by: Toyo Miyatake

Original Photo size:

Description: Each year, Saichi Kawakami, an accomplished wholesale flower grower who raised a family of eight, would hire a photographer to take new pictures of the family ranch. Saichi would then send these pictures to family in Japan to show the progress he was making in America. Pictures would be taken in the winter, when flower gardening profits were highest, providing Saichi with the financial means to hire professional photagrapher Toyo Miyatake, who was widely known in the Japanese American community. Pictured are stocks, one of the dozen different types of flowers that the Kawakami family grew at their ranch.

© California State University, Northridge 2008

For more information about this project, please contact:

Edith Chen, Professor Asian American Studies Dept.
18111 Nordhoff St., JR 340
Northridge, CA 91330-8251
edith.chen@csun.edu
818-677-4966

Nancy Takayama
San Fernando Valley Japanese American Community Center
nt.high.mtn@juno.com