From Humble Roots
Growing up in Los Angeles, my backyard was quite different from my friends’. Rather than a lawn and a vegetable garden, my father filled our backyard with potted plants. Most were growing in short clay pots, side-by-side on planks of wood supported by cinder blocks. Some were in large wooden boxes. Many had wires that wrapped around branches, others were trimmed very neatly. While we didn’t have a traditional backyard, this miniature forest made a great place to play army with my friends. And more than once I was scolded for breaking branches during an assault.
ABOVE LEFT: 1965 - Steve (age 9) with his father, Ted Iwaki.
ABOVE RIGHT: 2016 - 51 years later. Same tree, which now resides permanently at the Bonsai Collection - The Huntington Library and Gardens, San Marino, California.
ABOVE RIGHT: 2016 - 51 years later. Same tree, which now resides permanently at the Bonsai Collection - The Huntington Library and Gardens, San Marino, California.
The display below is dedicated to my mother, Mary Yoshiko Iwaki and all the other Japanese Americans that were interned during WWII.
1961: Steve with his mother