Fujitaro Kubota and his Garden is a documentary film about the extraordinary Japanese immigrant behind South Seattle’s beloved Kubota Garden, in Rainier Beach. The beautiful 20-acre public historical landmark, a fusion of traditional Japanese and Pacific Northwest landscaping, is Kubota’s lifetime masterpiece; a testament to not only his artistry but his perseverance in the face of anti-immigrant racism.
In 1927, Fujitarō Kubota, an immigrant from Shikoku Island, bought five acres of swampland in the Rainier Beach neighborhood. He and his family transformed the land into a nursery and display garden for their landscaping business, the Kubota Gardening Company. Kubota was self-taught with no prior gardening experience. His first US jobs had been at a sawmill and in property management. He had found his passion in landscaping, learnt as he went, and over time became a brilliant horticulturist with a thriving business.
But in 1942, Kubota and his family were forcibly removed from Seattle and incarcerated at Camp Minidoka in Idaho, part of the mass incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. Kubota’s garden was neglected for years while the family was imprisoned. Kubota and his family returned to Seattle in 1945 and, amazingly, were able to restart their business. Over time, Kubota bought additional land and grew the garden to 20 acres.
The garden became a center of Seattle Japanese American social and cultural activity for decades. The Kubota and Mukai families were friends with a shared love of gardening.
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