Interviewee: Kenneth Nakaba

Relationship to Nikkei gardeners: His father, George Nakaba, was a gardener

Date: July 17, 2007

Location: Japanese American National Museum

Brief Summary: Ken explains his father's creativity, and how he expressed himself through the small gardens he would create.

Transcript:
My name’s Ken Nakaba and my father’s name was George Nakaba. He was a gardener in the San Fernando Valley. Growing up as a gardener’s son, I of course helped him every Saturday, anything to get out of going to Japanese school.

Let’s see, I guess I did remember, as a child growing up, living in the Valley, he would always have this need to express himself in some way so he would build this little garden in the back. But I guess he was kind of a modernist in that he kind of made this Japanese garden out of found materials. I remember he made a lantern, looked like a stone lantern, only it was made out of an upside down barbeque dish with legs that I don’t know where he found them. And, so I guess his sort of creative need was expressed in these various little gardens that he would do. But it’s funny, he never really forced it on anybody else; he just kind of did it in his own backyard. And he also liked to grow bamboo, so we had a backyard full of bamboo. Anyway, that’s probably good. [laughs]

That’s one story that I can recall, other than the fact that he used to collect things. Sometimes he’d use them in his garden to create something out of it, but mostly, it was just collecting stuff.

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This interview was conducted as part of the Opening Day activities for the exhibition Landscaping America: Beyond the Japanese Garden.