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Richmond Ramblings: Japanese Flower Industry Remembered

Photo by Ken Osborn, Misterken Photography

Beginning in the early 20th century, flower-growing operations founded by Japanese immigrants were common El Cerrito and Richmond as well as in other Bay Area cities. The community in El Cerrito-Richmond grew over time to include 17 nurseries, as well as a Japanese school and church. A second group of nurseries flourished in what is now North Richmond and San Pablo, led by the arrival of the Nabeta family, who began growing roses near Brookside Drive in 1900.

A sizable Japanese American community grew up around the Bay Area as Japanese laborers who had found work with the Domoto brothers’ nursery in Oakland or laying railroad tracks in Richmond moved to the outskirts of established towns to start businesses. They bought or leased land and often used family labor to grow the carnations, chrysanthemums, and roses they would sell in San Francisco.

By Bernadette Talbot, Photographer

with the Berkeley Camera Club

Because a large number of local nursery owners had purchased their land before the passage of the 1913 Alien Land Law, which forbade property ownership to most Japanese as “aliens ineligible for citizenship,” Richmond’s Japanese community was a remarkably stable and long-lived ethnic enclave. Despite forced removal from homes and businesses during

Photo by Ken Osborn,

Misterken Photography

WWII, many of Richmond’s Japanese American nursery owners returned to their neighborhood and revived their businesses. Re-establishing the nurseries took remarkable effort and grinding labor; some families had to literally pick up the pieces as shattered panes of greenhouse glass littered every square foot of their property. A sizable number of Richmond’s nurseries were revived in the years just after the war – the Adachis, Fukushimas, Fujiis, Hondas, Maidas, Mayedas, Nabetas, Ninomiyas, Oishis, Oshimas, Sakais and Sugiharas all returned from camp to reclaim their livelihoods and community in Richmond. They were aided in great part by the tradition of cooperation established at the community’s outset.

Adachi, Sakai, & Oishi Nurseries

Photo courtesy of the Sakai and Oishi families

made available through the Richmond Museum of History

The oldest locally may have been the Adachi nursery, established in 1905 where the Home Depot store in El Cerrito is today.

The Sakai nursery started in 1906 with an initial 2.5 acres in Richmond and a single greenhouse salvaged from Berkeley.

The Oishi nursery started shortly after. Both grew as more land was acquired and more buildings were added, both shut down in 1942 during the World War II relocation of Japanese, and both resumed operations when the families returned after the war. Operations continued until fairly recently.

Ironically, some of the nurseries were displaced in just a few short years as the development of the I-80 freeway cut through the properties in 1948. By the mid-1960s, records indicate that of the original group of nurseries centered on Wall Avenue only the Adachi, Maida, Oishi, Oshima and Sakai families still survived. Of these, only the Oishi and Sakai nurseries operated into the 21st century.

World War II’s Effect on Japanese Nurseries

Aerial view of Sakai nursery, ca. 1945, post-war photo courtesy of the Sakai and Oishi families

made available through the Richmond Museum of History.

The flower trade prospered and even weathered well the Great Depression, but the businesses were closed or taken over by others when Japanese families on the west coast were interned during World War II. Most but not all of the families resumed their nursery trade after the war.

The impact of WWII on Richmond’s Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor changed their fortunes through a wartime program of forced removal from their homes, businesses and tightly knit communities. Although not large enough to support the range of local services and organizations that developed in Nihonmachis (Japantowns), Richmond’s cluster of Japanese American nurseries is historically significant as a Nikkei community centered around an industry that was important to this ethnic group and that survived all the way from the initial wave of immigration until the turn of the 21st century.

Despite forced removal from homes and businesses during WWII, many of Richmond’s Japanese American nursery owners returned to their neighborhood and revived their businesses. Re-establishing the nurseries took remarkable effort and grinding labor; some families had to literally pick up the pieces as shattered panes of greenhouse glass littered every square foot of their property. A sizable number of Richmond’s nurseries were revived in the years just after the war – the Adachis, Fukushimas, Fujiis, Hondas, Maidas, Mayedas, Nabetas, Ninomiyas, Oishis, Oshimas, Sakais and Sugiharas all returned from camp to reclaim their livelihoods and community in Richmond. They were aided in great part by the tradition of cooperation established at the community’s outset.

Photo by Ken Osborn,

Misterken Photography

In 1941, some members of these same Japanese-American families were actually part of what became the Home Front, working in the Richmond shipyards, building Liberty Ships to support the allies. After Pearl Harbor, they were shipped off to internment camps, but many volunteered for military service and eventually served with distinction. One of the most poignant stories is how some of their neighbors and former competitors cared for and operated a few of the nurseries in their absence and returned them in good shape after the war.

But other nurseries were abandoned and vandalized. In an ironic twist of fate, wartime leaseholders of many of the nurseries found they could reap greater profits by renting the structures out as temporary housing to shipyard workers.

Photo by Ken Osborn,

Misterken Photography

After the war, the returning internees, some who had become war heroes, struggled to successfully rebuild their businesses. Eventually, competition from low-cost flowers imported from Mexico and parts south made locally grown roses, carnations and other cut flowers uneconomical. One after another, the nurseries shut down and became big box stores and houses. The last of these were the Oishi and Sakai nurseries located near Wall Avenue and South 47^th Streets.

Carnations Photo by Ken Osborn, Misterken Photography

Preservation of Nurseries History

Photo by Ken Osborn, Misterken Photography

The Richmond Japanese-American nurseries are historically significant as Nikkei (Japanese immigrant and their American-born descendants) community centered around an industry important to this ethnic group surviving from the initial wave of immigration of the 19^th Century into the late 20^th Century. The Sakai and Oishi properties are the only extant cut-flower nurseries begun by Japanese-Americans before WW II in the entire Bay Area and are also the last remaining of Richmond’s community of Japanese American flower growers. The properties are rare surviving Bay Area nurseries, a once prominent industry in the core Bay Area counties that has been almost entirely displaced by development pressures during the last thirty years.

Richmond bought the nearly 14-acre site for $7.6 million in June 2006 from the Sakai, Oishi, and Endo families, The former Sakai, Oishi and Maida-Endo nursery properties are now owned by the Richmond Community Redevelopment Agency and slated for residential development in a project the Agency call “Miraflores.” Unfortunately, the evocative name that recalls the property’s historical use has been the Agency’s only recognition of its

Photo by Ken Osborn,

Misterken Photography

history. The Agency would like to simply tear everything down. The Historic Architecture Evaluation, however, makes a modest recommendation of saving one of the homes, the (water) tank house and at least one greenhouse and providing a permanent interpretive exhibit to communicate the history. The historic ensemble could be easily and economically integrated into the new development, giving it more than just a name to recall the site’s historically significant past.

Water Tank Photo by Ken Osborn, Misterken Photography