A Scent of Flowers

$39.95 plus tax & shipping

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Hardcover, 232 pages

A Scent of Flowers is a joint publication of the Southern California Flower Growers, Inc. and Midori Books

20% off for So. California Flower Grower Stockholder

Sales tax 9.00% (CA residents only)

Shipping/handling (1 book, $5.95; add $1.00 for each additional book)

*Ground UPS; Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery. No delivery to P.O. Box. Shipments only within the Continental U.S. For shipments of more than 5 books, contact Terri @ 213.627.2482 (ext. 221) or terri@socalflowermarket.com

The simple beauty of a flower reveals little of what is required to bring that beauty into our homes and workplaces. Prominent among the diverse immigrant groups striving since the early 1900s to build a flower industry from the ground up were first-generation Japanese Americans. Their business savvy and ingenuity laid the foundation for the Southland's first flower market: the Southern California Flower Market.

In A Scent of Flowers, author Naomi Hirahara former editor of The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, recounts the fascinating history of the economic, social, political and environmental challenges Japanese Americans faced growing and selling flowers in Southern California. Encounter the people, places, and events surrounding the Flower Market's development through over 100 black and white photographs (including four-page photo spreads) as well as in poignant accounts from growers themselves telling of a life that was demanding, yet not without time for fishing and picnics.

Despite hostile land laws, lawsuits, the Depression, and World War II internment, the men, women and children of the Flower Market endured. They did more than claim the land and an industry; they took a piece of California history and made it their own.