The City of Trees is paying a pink homage to its past, present and future Japanese residents.
Next year, pink cherry blossom petals from over 100 trees in Robert T. Matsui Park — a grove called the Hanami Line — will blanket and border the Sacramento waterfront. They’ll fulfill the promise of Japanese Sacramentans’ nickname for the city: Sakuramento, after the cherry blossom, “sakura” in Japanese.
The Hanami Line’s groundbreaking happened amid the sounds of taiko drummers and an audience of dozens. Representatives from the Sacramento Tree Foundation, which led the project, the Consul General of Japan, local, state and federal officials and members of the Sacramento chapter of the Japanese American Citizens’ League were present to celebrate.
“I'd give you a warm welcome, but I didn't think it was gonna be this warm,” Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento), quipped at the groundbreaking ceremony on June 29.
Congresswoman Doris Matsui talks with attendees of the ground breaking for the Hanami Line, a cherry blossom park being built along the Sacramento River, Thursday, June 29, 2023.Andrew Nixon / CapRadioThe decade-old project is next to the SMUD Museum of Science and Curiosity and will have public art, along with space for park visitors to participate in the spring tradition of hanami — “blossom watching” to appreciate flowers’ transient beauty — when the cherry trees bloom. Donors, including Caltrans, the city of Sacramento and UC Davis Health, raised over $7.3 million, above the project’s goal of $6.95 million.
“Cherry blossom season is a fleeting moment every year,” Matsui said. “But while the cherry blossom petals might drift away, the history, the friendships and essence of our community always remains.”
The Hanami Line is a way to “look forward and think about trees … as a legacy for the future,” Dr. Jessica Sanders, the executive director of the Sacramento Tree Foundation, told CapRadio.
“This park is really thinking of ‘how do you provide unique green spaces that aren't just grass?’” she said, “that are climate resilient, and sustainable and have the ability to really allow residents, both in our community and other people, to come and appreciate what we have?”
Sanders said the project is a “true Sacramento story,” from its acknowledgment of Japanese communities in the city to its benches, which will be built from milled and kiln-dried area redwoods.
Many Japanese Sacramentans’ parents and grandparents have seen the rise and fall of the city’s Japantown, along with displacement and incarceration during World War II. The Hanami Line represents an effort to re-emphasize Japanese Americans’ role as part of Sacramento’s fabric.
“One degree of separation”: Close-knit community looks forward to the project
The park where the Hanami Line is putting down roots also acknowledges the legacy of one particular Japanese Sacramentan: Matsui’s husband, the late Congress member Robert T. Matsui. He served in the House of Representatives for nearly three decades and was six months old when he and his family were incarcerated at the Tule Lake Japanese detention camp in far northern California.
Pink ribbons decorate shovels used to break ground on the Hanami Line, a cherry blossom park being built in Sacramento, Thursday, June 29, 2023.Andrew Nixon / CapRadioMatsui was a memorable part of the city’s tight-knit Japanese community, said Priscilla Ouchida, a third-generation Sacramentan. She remembers her husband’s cousin rooming with the late Matsui.
“I say it’s one degree of separation,” she said of knowing other Japanese Sacramentans.
Hanami Line project committee member Lon Hatamiya grew up in Marysville and comes from a family that has been close with Ouchida’s — both in proximity and friendship. The families were once next-door neighbors, and Hatamiya’s family housed Ouchida’s during Sacramento floods in 1937.
Hatamiya said his parents experienced both incarceration during World War II, and displacement after, which he sought reparations for during his time as Sacramento Japanese American Citizens’ League president. For him, the Hanami Line places “a heightened attention on the contributions Japanese Americans have made and the sacrifices that they've gone through.”
“The Japanese American community has been so resilient and responsive and done so much for the fabric and culture of Sacramento,” he said. “We really have to work together to ensure that … we can achieve justice, but also recognition for what we've done in the past.”
Ouchida added that the Hanami Line is exciting for “historical, cultural and personal reasons.”
“It’s something that I’m really excited for my daughter [to see] and for my grandbabies, and for the next generations,” she said.
The park offers opportunities for supporters to name trees, allowing Ouchida to memorialize her brother, who she lost to cancer last year.
Hatamiya, who has been part of the project committee since its inception, said its leaders have worked peripherally with the Florin-Sacramento Valley chapter of the Japanese American Citizens’ League.
At the June 29 ceremony, the Sacramento JACL chapter presented a $10,000 check toward the project.
“This is a historically important location for Japanese community, and Old Sacramento was the gateway to Sacramento for immigrants coming from Japan,” said chapter president Miko Sawamura. “For our 100th anniversary donation for Hanami Line, we are forever loving, celebrating and honoring our Isseis, Niseis, families and friends.”
Sawamura is on a committee with other community leaders who coordinate communications between Sacramento and Matsuyama, Sacramento’s sister city. That committee helped organize a donation from the Japanese city toward the Hanami Line project.
A look to the legacy of Sacramento’s past and present Japantown
Japanese Americans have been a crucial part of the Sacramento Delta and the city’s landscape. Many were farmers, and others set up businesses, restaurants and cultural establishments in the city, like Ouchida’s grandfather, who she calls “a really early pioneer who established the early days of Japantown in Sacramento.”
The Hanami Line isn’t far from Sacramento’s initial Japantown, one of the biggest in the state in its prime. Positioned within L and O Streets and bordered by 3rd and 5th Streets, it was over 200 businesses strong.
The Capitol Mall vista — a development protested by the late Congressman Matsui, among others — now sits upon the remains of that enclave.
“For a century and a half, Japanese Americans have thrived in Sacramento,” Matsui said. “You have to look a little harder to see that vibrant history today. The Hanami Line aims to revitalize the history and honor those who came before us.”
Traces of a new Japantown are present in Land Park along 10th Street’s intersection from T to W Streets, and a contingent of people have aimed to repurchase the land of the original Japantown.
Cherry trees have already been planted in Southside Park to honor Japanese residents and test the trees’ viability for Sacramento summers. Japanese churches still surround the area. Handmade mochi, manju and onigiri purveyor Osaka-Ya, also a Japanese grocery store, is one of the city’s longest-standing Japanese businesses and is over a century old.
California used to have over 30 such enclaves before World War II, including in Walnut Grove, Florin, and Sacramento. Now, there are only three, in San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles. Sacramento’s original Japantown was unable to fully resituate itself after the war and was bulldozed for redevelopment in 1960.
Still, the Hanami Line is positioned so Sacramento’s Japanese community can look to its past while celebrating its present.
“What's really cool about this location is when we stand and look at where the river is,” Sawamura said, “it's also looking towards Japan.”
