74 Years Later, an Honor for California's First Japanese American Winemaker
Community leaders including the Sonoma County JACL successfully campaigned for a city park to be named after Kanaye Nagasawa who once owned the land.
In his lifetime, Kanaye Nagasawa brought international recognition to California wine and gained nicknames like the "Grape King" and the "Baron of Fountaingrove." Seventy-four years after he died shrouded in disappointment over racist land laws, the California city he loved toasted their famous vintner once again by honoring his name.
The 33-acre park located at 1313 Fountaingrove Parkway in Santa Rosa, Calif. was officially christened Nagasawa Community Park at Fountaingrove July 28. Dignitaries including the consulate general from Japan in San Francisco and community members gathered on the rolling hills of Santa Rosa alongside a serene lake to celebrate the dedication of the park in honor of the man who once owned the land.
"It was very nostalgic," said Amy Ijichi Mori, Nagasawa's grandniece who was born on the plot of land when it was part of a 2,500-acre winery named Fountaingrove. As a young girl, Mori remembers seeing the flurry of activities as workers picked grapes to make wine. At the Saturday morning event, a handful of Nagasawa's former workers and their descendents were also in attendance to honor Nagasawa.
Under his leadership in the late 1800s to the early 1900s, Nagasawa's Fountaingrove became one of the 10 largest wineries in California. He was also the first to introduce California wines abroad to Europe and Japan.
Obon dancers and taiko drummers welcomed guests to the grand opening of the park, which includes shady oak trees and a hiking trail along the lake.
"It was quite an accomplishment for a Japanese man, to be so respected in the community," Kosuke Ijichi, Nagasawa's grandnephew said days before the event. Honors like the park dedication are way past due, he added. At the dedication Ijichi, 88, talked about the idyllic part of his childhood growing up in Fountaingrove and riding his horse over the hills.
The memories are tainted with a bit of irony: this was supposed to be Ijichi's land.
Nagasawa's descendents lost the land after Nagasawa died in 1934 because Alien Land Laws prohibited Ijichi, the chosen heir and an American citizen, from inheriting the land. The Ijichi family was forced to move out in 1937, when most of the land was sold. Proceeds from the sale were supposed to go to Nagasawa's family, but after attorney fees and prohibition related debts, the family received $3,501.42 to be divided among five heirs. Then another indignity happened: internment at Rohwer in Arkansas.
Today, it's difficult to separate the good from the bad.
"It's tragic that it didn't stay in the hands of Japanese," said Ijichi to the Pacific Citizen from his home in Walnut Grove, Calif. "We lost everything and it was very discouraging."
But like the Issei used to say, shikata ga nai.
"It's the past now," said Mori. "We're celebrating the present."
The Makings of a Baron
Nagasawa was born Hikosuke Isonaga in 1852, as the fourth son of a Satsuma Clan samurai, Confucian scholar, stone carver and astronomer. In 1865, at 13, he along with 14 other Japanese men were chosen to go to Europe to study the ways of the Western world. During this time, Japan was closed to the world, so the young men were smuggled out of Japan's Kagoshima Harbor and first taken to Hong Kong. There, Hikosuke Isonaga cut his hair into a short Western-style crop, put on Western clothes and became Kanaye Nagasawa.
Nagasawa settled in England and Scotland for several years to study Western medicine before meeting Thomas Lake Harris, a utopian religious leader whose teachings Nagasawa began to follow. Harris established a community called the Brotherhood of the New Life on the shores of Lake Erie. Harris sent Nagasawa to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York to study winemaking.
But to establish his wine industry, Harris looked West.
In 1875 the men arrived in Santa Rosa and purchased an estate for a new colony they called Fountaingrove, the "Eden of the West." There, Nagasawa began sowing the seeds to make California one of the foremost purveyors of wine at that time.
When Harris left the colony and the "Brotherhood" was disbanded, Nagasawa became Fountaingrove's "baron." He hosted lavish celebrations for Japanese dignitaries at his home almost every week.
"He did a lot for U.S.-Japan and international relations," said Mori.
In private, the baron was a quiet, even-tempered intellectual.
"He was like a grandfather to me. I can remember him telling me stories of how he brought the property up to what it was," said Ijichi about his granduncle who never married.
"Our house was full of books," said Mori, who remembers following Nagasawa around Fountaingrove. "I understand that he was a student of Eastern philosophy. He was a very small man. He was very tiny."
Up until now, all of the recognitions and honors went to Harris, but Nagasawa was the one who did the planning and building of Fountaingrove.
"He planted the grapes and started making the wine," said Ijichi.
Paying Homage to the King, 74 Years Later
"California wine was well-known through the world because of Nagasawa," said Marie Sugiyama of the Sonoma County JACL.
In 2005, Bill Montgomery of the Santa Rosa Lamplighter Cemetery Tours and then-mayor Jane Bender contacted the Sonoma County JACL to help put on a short play about Nagasawa and Fountaingrove for the tour.
At the time, aside from a historical exhibit on Nagasawa at the current Paradise Ridge Winery on the property that was once a part of Fountaingrove, the vintner's legacy waned. The 33-acre park was already named Fountaingrove Recreational Park, but Montgomery and other community leaders pushed to have it renamed after Nagasawa.
With the support of Ruth Serrano and Sunae Nakajima Chambers, Sugiyama made a recommendation to the Santa Rosa City Council at their May 1 meeting to rename the park. The city council passed the resolution unanimously.
"First of all he was a very significant influence in the development of our city and our wine industry," said Bender, a current Santa Rosa City Councilmember. "More importantly to me however, is the fact that his land was taken away from his family during the terrible injustices done to Japanese in World War II. By naming the park for him, we are - in an incredibly small way, I admit - acknowledging that this was his land. Personally that means a lot to me and I hope to the others of Japanese ancestry."
Today, the only remnants of Fountaingrove's grandeur are the round red barn, which was used to store the horses, and the old winery. A sign on the main road still marks the location as Fountaingrove, said Mori.
The next phase of development for Nagasawa Community Park will bring about a day camp area, picnic sites and fishing docks.
"My children know the history of Fountaingrove. I think something like [the park] may help them understand what happened," said Ijichi.
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