Northern California Japanese Floriculture in Transition

Abstract

Japanese floriculture in northern California started in the last years of the nineteenth century, greatly expanding in later years, especially in San Francisco Bay Area. The California Flower Market, Inc. of San Francisco played a centripetal role among Japanese flower growers, providing them with a market place as well as socially and culturally uniting those who had difficulties with language and a sometimes hostile social environment. This ethnicly-oriented industry, however, has experienced great changes since World War II.The present paper is intended to describe and analyze this transition. Four factors are principally responsible: (1) The San Francisco Bay Area has been one of the most rapidly urbanizing areas of the country in recent decades and flower nurseries often stand as a last remnant of agriculture engulfed in the surge of new urban housing developments. High taxes and zoning restrictions make the survivale of nurseries more and more difficult. (2) Technological development has had a great impact on the production as well as the marketing of flowers. Innovations in transportation have been important, especially in marketing. Air and truck shipment, together with the advancement in refrigeration techniques, has made possible a major expansion of markets. Trucking especially has given the industry more mobility and it has become more efficient and profitable to grow flowers in the climatically suitable and lowest cost producing areas. Greenhouse facilities also have seen great advancement and the control of the micro-environment has become more and more efficient, making it possible to respond better to peak demands. (3) The hostile social environment of the pre-war period has changed to greater tolerance and acceptance of the Japanese. The weakening role of formal and informal mechanisms of discrimination has allowed them to participate in economic activities on an equal basis, thus diversifying their occupational opportunities. This has changed the traditional form and function of ethnic organization. (4) Cultural changes have also occured in the Japanese community itself. The later generations, i.e. American-born Japanese well assimilated into the American way-of-life and value systems, has largely eliminated the peculiar ethnic relationship in both economic and cultural activities under which Issei growers so florished.Although the Japanese were evacuated and held in relocation centers during World War II, flower growers quickly and successfully reestablished themselves in their former business at its close. In this period of reestablishment and development, second-generation Nisei became the dominant force in the industry. Several members of the same family often collaborated in expanding the scale of their operations. Improvement and modernization of greenhouse facilities and floricultural techniques, as well as transport and infrastructure, were continuous. New ways of marketing flowers were introduced, altering the traditional function of the California Flower Market in San Francisco. Operations increased in scale, and growers increasingly took on the function of wholesalers and shippers. But the floriculture industry has been caught up in the rapid urbanization and economic transformation of the Bay Area in recent years. New nursery developments have spread to the South Bay as Oakland and the northern San Francisco Peninsula have lost their dominant position in the industry. But increasing reluctance of Sansei to continue with the family business makes the future of the industry problematic in this traditional center of Japanese floriculture.In response to increasing taxes and the pressures of urbanization, a part of the industry leap-frogged in the mid-1960's to the Monterey Bay area. Here Post-war immigrants and Nisei from the Bay Area joined together to establish a new floricultural region.