NikkeiWest--Northern California Japanese American Newspaper

Recent images of the Sakai home and water tower, and greenhouses.

By J.K. Yamamoto

RICHMOND—The development of land formerly occupied by Japanese American family-owned nurseries in Richmond is proceeding smoothly under a plan that is acceptable to preservationists and developers alike.

The Sakai, Oishi and Maia-Endo nurseries, which are no longer in business, were part of a thriving Japanese American flower-growing industry that was established in the Richmond-El Cerrito area around the late 19th-early 20th century. Despite the disruption of the internment, some of them were survived and continued into the past decade.

The Miraflores Housing Development Plan, which will consist of 230 units of affordable and market-rate housing plus retail space, will preserve some greenhouses and other structures as part of a project to educate the public about the area’s Nikkei heritage.

The 14-acre property, currently owned by the City of Richmond, is bounded by BART tracks to the north, South 45th Street to the west, Interstate 80 to the east and Wall Avenue to the south.

The week before Christmas, the Richmond City Council certified the environmental impact report (EIR), which calls for preservation of the Oishi and Sakai houses, a water tower, and greenhouses that will be part of a “greenbelt” for recreation and farming.

Councilman Tom Butt, who is normally against the demolition of historic resources, was satisfied with the project’s historical component, which includes an interpretive exhibit and a documentary film, and did not oppose the razing of dozens of greenhouses. The EIR states that destroying most of the greenhouses “would cause a significant adverse impact to historical resources.”

Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, the only council member who voted no, was unhappy with the proposed method of dealing with soil contaminated with pesticides and other substances.

The city, the non-profit developer, Eden Housing, and even the Nikkei families were initially not in favor of preserving any of the buildings. Local historian Donna Graves, who has documented past and present Japanese American communities up and down the state for the Preserving California’s Japantowns (PCJ) project, was instrumental in getting everyone to see eye-to-eye.

“Fascinating and Significant”

Graves’ research on the nurseries predates her involvement with the Japantowns project. She became aware of Nikkei history in Richmond in the late 1990s, when she helped establish Rosie the Riveter/Worldf War II Home Front National Historical Park.

“I urged the National Park Service to include Shimada Park (named after Richmond’s sister city in Japan) on the Richmond waterfront, the former Kaiser Shipyards, as part of the park that could recognize the presence of Nikkei in Richmond and the shifting relationships between Japan and the U.S.,” she said.

“The park was authorized by Congress in October 2000, and by 2001 I was working to convince the new NPS staff that documenting and interpreting the internment of Richmond’s Nikkei community was very important. They were focused on other things.”

In 2002, Graves applied to the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program for a grant. Her project was titled “Not at Home on the Home Front: Japanese Americans and Italian Americans in Richmond During World War II,” and historians Lynne Horiuchi and Lawrence DiStasi joined her in conducting several oral histories from each community and producing a historical report.

Graves also obtained a grant from the California Coastal Commission that supported an oral history collaboration between the City of Richmond, the NPS and UC Berkeley’s Regional Oral History Program. “I conducted an extensive interview with Tom Oishi for that project, which made me familiar with the Oishi and Sakai nurseries,” she said.

According to Graves, these families are intimately tied to the history of the California Flower Market. The three Issei Sakai/Oishi brothers, who were cousins, were among the founders, and Nisei Sam Sakai was appointed president after Pearl Harbor.

Regarding the initial opposition to preservation of the nursery structures, Graves commented, “I believe the nursery families, like most people, had difficulty seeing their own lives as historically important. As I began to see how fascinating and significant this history was, I took every chance I could to share it with city staff, the National Park Service, the Richmond Historic Preservation Advisory Committee, the Richmond-Shimada Friendship Commission, the Contra Costa JACL, California Japanese American Community Leadership Council, and others.

“Most people came around to the view that this was a unique and highly significant piece of Richmond’s heritage. The work with PCJ allowed me to assess whether there were any other similar places in California, and we determined that the Sakai and Oishi nurseries held the largest collection of intact pre-World War II Japanese American nursery buildings anywhere. Since cut-flower nurseries were an important economic sector for Nikkei, this made the site extremely important.”

Buffer Zone

The families wanted to complete the sale of businesses that were no longer economically viable due to cheaper foreign imports, and were worried that any historical designation would slow down or even halt the development.

“But the awareness that had been built triggered a requirement for a historical assessment of the site under guidelines of the California Office of Historic Preservation,” recalled Graves. “I was part of a team that conducted this work, although my role was limited to researching and writing the history of the nurseries.

“The historic architects offered a pretty limited recommendation of what should be preserved — the Sakai house and water tower and one adjacent greenhouse. As the development project lagged, I kept trying to keep the significance of these nurseries in the conversation, which was aided by a new Air Quality Management District finding that no housing could be built within a buffer zone next to I-80. The buffer included a number of historic greenhouses.”

In the summer of 2008, Graves organized a meeting with representatives from the office of Rep. George Miller (D-Richmond), City of Richmond, Office of Historic Preservation, NPS, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Contra Costa JACL and PCJ. “We discussed a number of preservation alternatives, several of which centered on new urban agriculture projects, while acknowledging that a sustainable economic plan for any of them was critical and needed to be developed.”

The city’s Redevelopment Agency has said that the greenhouses in the 4-acre buffer zone could be used to grow flowers and vegetables.

“I hope to be closely involved with the interpretation, but that component has not been fleshed out yet,” Graves said. “Working with members of the Contra Costa JACL, I initiated the video project alongside Naomi Torres, then chief of interpretation for Rosie the Riveter National Park, as a way to tell the Nikkei story at the national park Visitors Center in the historic Ford Assembly Building.”

Graves and Jill Shiraki of PCJ are working with filmmaker Ken Kokka on the documentary and the JACL chapter is raising funds for it.

Family’s Perspective

Charlotte Sakai said that her family closed its nursery around 2001 and then rented the greenhouses until the property was purchased by the Redevelopment Agency in 2006.

“The Sakais could not compete against the South American-grown roses,” she said. “The Oishis raised and sold carnations until 2006.  The Maedas had closed their place a while ago.”

U.S. flower growers have long called themselves unintended victims of America’s war on drugs. The federal government triggered the surge in imports by sending foreign aid to Colombia to encourage farmers there to grow flowers instead of illegal coca plants.

Sakai confirmed that the Oishis and Sakais supported the demolition of the buildings. “We preferred keeping our history available in a museum, on video. Tom Butt and local historical societies wanted to preserve the buildings and said so at various city meetings. The families did not support the preservation of the buildings.”

The families were not involved in the planning of the project, she added, “though there were public hearings where we could have said something.”

Sakai is working on the documentary with Graves, Shiraki, Chizu Iiyama, and nursery family representatives such as Flora Ninomiya, Jim Oshima and Larry Oishi. “I think the video project would reach more people to inform them about the JA immigrant story,” she said. “We plan to have the video available at the Rosie the Riveter National Historic Site, on the Internet, at local history museums, etc.”

Timetable for Abatement, Demolition

Katie Lamont of Eden Housing said that a for-profit developer will be brought into the picture, but that it may not happen right away “given what’s going with the economy.”

The first order of business, she said, is to start the abatement of toxic materials at the site, hopefully by March. That has to be completed before any demolition can take place. All materials containing asbestos, for example, must be removed.

“I think abatement will take about 45 to 60 days … Then we start cleanup shortly thereafter,” Lamont said. “I would like to be done with everything (including demolition) by October, when it starts raining …

“Architectural Resources Group (of San Francisco) is giving us advice on how to protect structures that are going to be preserved during demolition. We have to move them temporarily and then move them back.”

Once all that is finished, the property will be “much more attractive” to a potential investor-developer,” she explained.

In addition to the housing units, 80 of which will be affordable, Lamont said the amount of retail will be “tiny” because “there’s not enough vehicle traffic to support retail.” At the same time, she envisions possibilities for the green space, such as “an educational program, a community garden or possibly small-scale commercial growing of plants.” The Oishi house, she added, might be used for office, storage space or classrooms.”

She stressed that it remains to be seen “what is actually going to work there” and which partner organization will be responsible for it.

The plan — which also calls for uncovering part of Baxter Creek that is currently hidden in an underground culvert — is acceptable to all parties, but it’s “a question of cost,” Lamont said. “No home builder has come forward yet and agreed to build 230 homes and do all these other things — uncover the creek, doing historic mitigations. I hope that’s possible … I think we need the economy to come back a little more strongly.”

The final phase of historical documentation of the site won’t be a problem, she said. “A lot of people are very familiar with it and care about it. There’s lot of information we already have available to us.”

She predicted that there would be enough material to have “some kind of sign on- site, a more substantial exhibit at the national park … (and) have something at the Richmond Museum as well. Family members have said they would like to have their history honored at a museum.”