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.
At the end of WWII, Japanese Americans usually had only a choice, being a gardener or a housecleaner. Men, like my father became gardeners. Occasionally my dad would host backyard parties, where his friends would gather, drink beer, and talk about these plants, each one giving their opinion. One friend, John Naka, seemed to command the respect of all.
I found out much later that these and other backyard parties were the start of the first bonsai movement in Southern California, maybe even on the west coast. It was the beginning of a passion shared by many gardeners of Japanese descent to reconnect and establish a sense of community after their treatment in internment camps during the war. 
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Back in the day, these meetings were held at members’ homes, not community centers, churches, or nurseries like today. As a kid growing up, all I could remember was the black rotary dial phone John Naka had in his backyard, attesting to the amount of time he spent attending to his trees.
This is a passion I shared with my dad, Ted (Takio) Iwaki. He passed away at 103 years old in 2019, but his mind was still sharp and he still had an eye for bonsai. We bonded as father and son, occasionally working on trees together. Over the last few years of his life, we visited his friends and attended local bonsai shows, nurseries and gardens. He reveled in telling people how old he was and was quite content conversing in Japanese and broken English, while I looked at his friend's trees, still being forever nurtured in their backyards. Having inherited most of his trees, I hope to someday share this passion with one of my kids, passing these same trees forward to the next generation.
Father and daughter
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Ted Iwaki - One of the recognized Pioneers of Bonsai in California - The Huntington Library and Gardens, San Marino, California.
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Scrub Oak
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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
