by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Another of the Homestead’s artifacts displayed at our booth during last Saturday’s Earth Day celebration at the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts on Workman Mill Road just a couple miles west of the Museum, is a real photo advertising postcard, probably from the 1910s, of the Figueroa Street Nursery, another Japanese-owned enterprise located not too far from the Pico Street Nursery that was featured here in a recent post.
This establishment was situated at 1203 S. Figueroa Street, where the Convention Center is now situated, and was long owned by Itsusuke (George) Zaima (1881-1942), who like Pico Street Nursery proprietor Masajiro Yoshida, hailed from Hiroshima, the Honshu Island metropolis that, along with Nagasaki, was destroyed by American atomic bomb attacks that brought the Japanese surrender that ended World War II.
According to the 1910 census, Zaima, who adopted the Americanized name of George, migrated to the United States in 1904, just a few years prior to the Gentlemen’s Agreement between the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese government to restrict immigration in exchange for the desegregation of schools in San Francisco, which had a large Japanese population.
The earliest found mention of him (this can be challenging for people of color in white-owned newspapers) is from an advertisement in the 25 April 1907 edition of the Los Angeles Times, in which he stated that “an experienced Japanese gardener wants to keep [a] garden by, hour, day or to contract by month” and that he would “work elegantly.” His address was at the corner of 11th and Figueroa streets, just a little north of where his nursery was soon established.
Zaima resided at the nursery address with his business partner, Miyosaku (Francis) Uyematsu, and the earliest located ad for the enterprise was located in the Catholic newspaper, The Tidings, in its edition of 18 December 1908. In a section devoted to promoting “Reliable Business Concerns of St. Vincent’s Parish,” that church being a short distance to the southeast on Washington Boulevard and Grand Avenue, the paper that,
The Figueroa Street Nursery are wholesale and retail dealers in plants, roses, trees, shrubs, ferns, etc. They are located 1203 South Figueroa street in St. Vincent’s parish. The proprietors, Zaima and Uyematsu, are well known and reliable nurserymen and are enjoying a liberal patronage from all classes.
Mirroring ads found in the Times and Los Angeles Herald as the decade came to a close, the 16 December 1909 edition of The Tidings, which double entered the establishment as also being within the parish of St. Agnes’ Church, now on Vermont Avenue near Adams Boulevard, added that Uyematsu and Zaima specialized in “European, Japanese and Home plants,” while it also was stated that “the Tidings recommend them.”
By 1911 and 1912, ads in the Catholic paper from the nursery featured images, one showing a Japanese scene and another a potted palm, and there was mention in the 12 April 1912 issue of the Pasadena Star that, among the larger displays in a Crown City flower show, which also featured the prominent South Pasadena nursery owner, Edward H. Rust, who we’ll feature later this month in a post,
One corner of the tent is given over to the exhibit of the Figueroa Street nursery of Los Angeles, and is most tastifully [sic] arranged to represent a Japanese garden. Some fine specimens of Wisteria and many conifers are used.
A little over a month later, a notice in the Times informed readers that “I. Zaima has bought the entire property of Figueroa St. Nursery from the former partner M. Uyematsu,” who went on to establish his own nursery and moved to Monterey Park. Soon after her arrival from Japan in 1911, Natsuye Kaneda married Isusuke and the couple had six children, three sons and three daughters.
Curiously, the 1915 Los Angeles City Directory lists three Zaima family members at the same 12th Street address near the business , including George I.; his brother Masataka (Frank), who arrived the year prior and worked as a salesman at the nursery before forming a successful produce business at the Grand Central Market; and William M., shown as with Zaima and Son, “Props. Figueroa St. Nurseries.” Zaima’s son by that name, however, was only three years old, so it is unclear what the situation was with this arrangement, as the 1916 edition showed only “G Itsusuke” Naima at the house and business.
Another major change took place by 1916, as reflected in an ad in the Los Angeles Tribune of 17 December, which contained an “announcement of two carloads of choice trees and shrubbery from Holland” and Zaima informing readers “I would be pleased to have you call and view these beautiful and choice plants” including azaleas, camellias, cyclamen, and lilacs for Christmas. But, while the Figueroa address was for the sales yard, there was mention of a nursery at Montebello.
Notably, the Rural World of the prior day featured the enterprise and the imported shipment by remarking,
That the great European war [World War One] has not altogether destroyed commercial relations between the United States and foreign points is evidenced by the fact that I. Zaima . . . has just received a shipment of two carloads of ornamental trees and shrubs direct from Holland . . . This shipment brought many hundreds of trees [many of these and other plants were listed, including boxwood, holly, spruce, cherry, almond and lilacs] . . . Mr. Zaima expects in the near future a shipment of two carloads of plants and trees from Japan, including about 5000 Japanese persimmons.
The 24 February 1917 edition of the publication commented that the nursery “for many years has been importing and creating a demand for Japanese persimmons” and those 5,000 trees arrived “with a large quantity of Oriental plants and shrubs.” Two varieties, the Hachiya and Tanenashi, of the fruit were said to be “prolific bearers” and “command good prices in the local and Eastern markets.” Finally, they were deemed hardy and able to thrive in almost any climate and easily handle transport.
The subsequent summer brought another important change to the enterprise as the Rural World of 28 July informed readers that “the well known Figueroa Nursery . . . recently found it necessary to seek larger quarters in order to take care of the increasing demands of its business.” Reiterating that Itsusuke was a specialist in Dutch and Japanese plants and trees, the article added that “he also has a large nursery and growing yards covering many acres at Montebello,” while the new Los Angeles yard was at the northwest corner of Vermont and Adams (where a Jack in the Box restaurant is now) and across the latter from St. Agnes’ Church.
In late 1918, the nursery, listed as Zaima and Son, advertised in The Tidings and, in addition to the long-standing reference to “Japanese, European and Home Plants,” as well as the subheading of “Importers and Growers,” it was mentioned that the business worked with “funeral designs” and “wedding decorations.” When Itsusuke registered for the draft on 12 September, a couple of months before the end of the world war, he listed his home address as the same as the nursery.
The federal census of 1920, taken in June, listed the Zaima family at the Vermont location, with Itsusuke’s occupation given as “Greenhouse Florist.” At the start of the year, the Los Angeles Express twice reported on an accident at the Montebello nursery, as it stated, on 3 January, that
While still suffering from minor burns received less than week ago when a distillate-burning boiler . . . back-fired and sprinkled his face and arms with burning distillate, S. Zaima today is in a serious condition following a second accident of the same nature. His face and body were covered with the flaming hot fluid.
It may be that this was another brother, but no other information could be located other than that, while the unfortunate man was taken to the Montebello Hospital, he succumbed to the terrible injuries after a day or so. After this information on the nursery and the Zaimas becomes sparser. In summer 1923, Itsusuke returned from Japan and his father, Tetsuhiro, of Hiroshima, was listed as his nearest relative in the nation from which he came, while his occupation was given as “nursery owner.”
During the 1920s, the Zaima family relocated to their Montebello nursery property, which was near the intersection of Beverly Boulevard and Garfield Avenue, where their neighbors in the 1930 census were Uyematsu and his family, along with other Japanese nursery figures and farmers, though it is not known if Itsusuke and Francis Uyematsu resumed their partnership or just had adjoining nurseries.
It appears that Itsusuke retired during the Great Depression years, as he had no given occupation in the 1940 census, when the Zaimas relocated to what is now the northeast corner of Inglewood, though two sons were engaged in nursery work, including William and George, who was quite an athlete at Montebello High School and afterward including in baseball, basketball, track and field and tennis. Daughter Virginia was also a skilled tennis player, another, Florence, appeared in news accounts in Montebello floral shows during the Thirties, and a third, Dorothy, was a talented pianist.
These activities are spotlighted because the Zaima family lived and worked as any American family did during this period, but the onset of America’s entry in World War II and the internment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps in 1942 shattered the idea of acceptance, but Itsusuke died on 17 May, just as the terrible ordeal of leaving their home and jobs was undertaken. The record shows that the family, after temporarily being confined at the Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia, was incarcerated at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, where Masataka and his family also were taken.
Notably, some of the Zaima family left the camp before war’s end, with Natusye following William to Casper, Wyoming in 1943, where he evidently found work. Early that year, daughter Dorothy went to Minnesota and, exactly a year later, in January 1944, son Paul went to New York City. Son George was transferred in spring 1943 to Rohwer camp in Arkansas. Masataka’s family were all went to Clewiston, Florida, northwest of Miami in November 1944, though there was a return to Los Angeles after the war concluded.
Despite the trauma of forced relocation, many of the Zaima family rebuilt their lives in greater Los Angeles. William’s namesake son, born in 1947 just after the conflict ended, became a legendary women’s tennis coach at UCLA for many years and George had a brief career as a film and television actor. Notably, Francis Uyematsu, as he prepared to be sent away to a concentration camp at Manzanar in eastern California, was forced to sell much of his nursery inventory to newspaper publisher Manchester Boddy for his Descanso Gardens, now a local botanical landmark in La Cañada-Flintridge. A granddaughter, Amy Uyematsu, also born in 1947 and who died in 2023, was a high school math teacher and a celebrated poet.
As noted in the post about the contemporary Pico Street Nursery, there were opportunities for Japanese immigrants like Masajiro Yoshida and Itsusuke Zaima to become entrepreneurs in this field, despite the many barriers of discrimination, including bans on land ownership and much else. The artifacts displayed at the Earth Day event about their enterprises concern various levels of “the environment” as plants, shrubs and trees are clearly important to the physical one, while the life experiences of the proprietors and their family are historical notable in the social form.