Greenmakers =Gurīn Mēkāzu: Japanese American Gardeners In Southern California

by Naomi Hirahara

Green Makers explores the little-known history of Japanese American gardeners in Southern California during the past century. Equipped with only pickup trucks and lawnmowers, they faced discriminatory laws and even the forced removal from their homes during World War II. Yet they remained committed to their to make Southern California green for their families, ethnic community, and region. The book includes original writings, photographs, historic summaries, and a timeline spanning a hundred years.

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Naomi Hirahara is the USA Today-bestselling and award-winning author of multiple mystery series, noir short stories, nonfiction history books and one middle-grade novel. Her Edgar Award-winning Mas Arai series features a Los Angeles gardener and Hiroshima survivor. Her first historical mystery, CLARK AND DIVISION, which follows a Japanese American family from Manzanar to Chicago in 1944, won a Mary Higgins Clark Award in 2022. Her two other series star a young mixed race female LAPD bicycle cop, Ellie Rush, and a Filipina-Japanese American woman in Kaua'i, Lellani Santiago. She also has written a middle-grade book, 1001 CRANES. In 2025, the history book she co-wrote with Geraldine Knatz, TERMINAL ISLAND: LOST COMMUNITIES ON AMERICA'S EDGE, won a California Book Award gold medal. She, her husband and their rat terrier live happily in her birthplace of Pasadena, California.