Shades of L.A. is an archive of photographs representing the contemporary and historic diversity of families in Los Angeles. Images were chosen from family albums and include daily life, social organizations, work, personal and holiday celebrations, and migration and immigration activities. Made possible and accessible through the generous support of the Security Pacific National Bank, Sunlaw Cogeneration Partners, Photo Friends, California Council for the Humanities, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, and the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation
Images available for reproduction and educational use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/orderinguse.html for additional information. The contents of this collection are restricted to personal, research, and non-commercial use. The Library cannot share the personal and/or contact information of the donors, their descendants, or associates who contributed photographs and oral histories to the collection.
Description
Title supplied by cataloger.; Image is a reproduction. Alice Ito was born in 1919 in Los Angeles, California. Both of her parents were born in Japan but had moved to California as children. Alice’s parents owned a flower farm in Los Feliz where Alice and her siblings grew up. She attended Los Feliz Elementary School, Thomas King Jr. High, John Marshall High School, and Hollywood High School. She was one of a very few Asian Americans at school; most of her classmates were white. She attended Los Angeles Junior College (now Los Angeles Community College).In 1939 she and her family went to Japan to live with her ailing grandfather; she decided to remain for college. Her ship home in 1941 was one of the last ones to allow passengers into America. Her family was relocated at the beginning of World War II in April 1942 and lost everything. They were sent to Gila, Arizona. Alice was allowed to leave after six months to marry her husband Art Ito, who was in Illinois as a serviceman for the U.S. Armed Forces. Her family could not attend the wedding and had to remain in Gila for two more years. She lived in Minnesota during the war and worked in a flower shop as well as taught Army Specialized Training Program students Japanese. After the war, Alice and her family moved back to Los Angeles where she and her husband began working in the flower business. They had two sons, the younger of whom took over the flower business. Alice and her husband were involved in the Japanese American Citizens League. Harue stands in front of his family florist business in a nursery field on Los Feliz Boulevard. The family leased land in Los Feliz to grow flowers for the wholesale market on Wall Street. Sweet peas, carnations, chrysanthemums and ranunculus were among the flowers grown. They leased the land from 1917-1942 and from 1945 until the 1960's. During World War II the family was evacuated to a Federal internment camp. This photograph was taken after the family returned from the war to manage the flower gardens again. Pansies were the first crop, a promotion to let customers know they were back.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;14 x 23 cm. Photographic prints
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