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While some Japanese and Japanese- Americans worked the railroads and laundries, others plumbed gold mine operations and others chose to grow produce, plants and flowers. While everyone of Japanese descent was prohibited from owning agricultural land in California from 1913 through the end of World War II, they could lease small parcels of land for three years at a time. Many chose to grow crops that had a shorter growing period, which is why many chose to grow flowers. Led by the four Domoto brothers, who established the first commercial flower growing business in Northern California, in 1884, immigrants learned the flower business from them and were encouraged to start their own. Zenjuro Shibata was one such person, opening a nursery in 1906 in Oakland, Calif. at was the year of the Great San Francisco Earthquake, which destroyed the city. Across the bay, the city of Oakland was also affected, but it survived relatively intact because no fires broke out there. After marrying, Zenjuro and the Shibata clan moved south to Hayward, Calif., in 1918 and established the Mt. Eden Nursery. Son Yoshimi was born shortly before the move, and an older son died in an accident in 1920. Even during the 1930s and e Great Depression, the business of flower growing bloomed, as Zenjuro and family increased output with more and larger greenhouses. And because its market now far exceeded its San Francisco area, Mt. Eden needed to be in constant communication with its wholesale customers. It all came to a head not long after the U.S. entered WWII in December 1941. After a group of flower dealers formed to charter a weekly truck to move Mt. Eden flowers down to the Japanese wholesale flower market in Los Angeles, Yoshimi traveled there to ensure all was well. However, because of Pearl Harbor, Japanese and Japanese-Americans were initially banned from traveling more than five miles from their homes, so to get around this, Yoshimi borrowed a badge from a Chinese-American buddy that read, "I am Chinese" (people of Japanese ethnicity were quickly becoming persona non grata in the U.S.). Upon his arrival in Los Angeles, Yoshimi saw armed soldiers at the train station checking passenger documentation. Emboldened, he walked up to a soldier—still wearing the badge—and asked where the flower market was. Perhaps the question and the badge alleviated suspicions because Yoshimi's credentials were not checked, and the soldiers provided him with directions. It was all for naught, however, because upon arriving at the flower market, Yoshimi discovered it shut down because the owners were Japanese and not American citizens. During the war, Yoshimi's family leased their land and "voluntarily" relocated to Marysville, Calif., before being sent to the Tule Lake Segregation Center, a Japanese internment camp. Perhaps because of his long-achieved good standing as an upright Californian citizen and entrepreneur, Yoshimi was declared loyal to the U.S. government, granted indefinite leave from the internment camp and allowed to move to Des Plaines, Ill. After the war, Yoshimi married Grace Eto and had three children: Naomi, Robert and Michael, all of whom would work at the reclaimed nursery. Yoshimi lived to the ripe old age of 99, passing away in 2015. During his storied lifetime, he had many accomplishments and achieved many successes. He was awarded the "Order of the Rising Sun, Fourth Class" medal by the Japanese government in 1987 for his pioneering work in the floral industry, and in 2015, he received the "Distinguished Service Award" from the California Association of Flower Growers and Shippers. e award was in recognition of Yoshimi having created a co-op of rose growers in 1949, which made Mt. Eden one of the largest growers and marketers of the flower in the U.S.; developing a chrysanthemum breeding and propagation business; partnering with the Sumitomo Corporation of Japan in 1989 to further develop a carnation breeding and propagation enterprise; helping create and set airfreight standards for flower shipment with the Civil Aeronautics Board, a former U.S. aviation agency; and assisting with efforts to consolidate trucking logistics from the West Coast to the East Coast. Other notable achievements by Mt. Eden under Yoshimi's leadership include being one of the first growers to use precooled boxes for shipping, opening its own wholesale stores for vertical integration, selling flowers to supermarkets and fulfilling orders for online flower retailers. Mt. Eden was also an early adopter of purchasing imported flowers to supplement its own production, establishing a partnership with Visaflor to bring roses from Mexico to the Los Angeles Flower Market. Nowadays, based in San Jose, Calif., with a satellite facility in San Francisco, Mt. Eden is one of the country's top wholesale distributors of cut flowers, plants, floral supplies, and event and holiday décor. e company is currently led by Yoshimi's son, Robert ("Bob")— the third generation of Shibata—with Robert's son, Alex ( fourth generation) also now working at the company. Business 54 February | 2022

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