These photos depict the Tokio Florist, a family business which was opened by Yuki Sakai (nee Kawakami) in 1929 and maintained with the help of several family members.  

Yuki had arrived in the United States in 1913, married Masao Sakai, and was widowed with five young children when she opened Tokio Florist.  With help from her parents, and later her daughter Sumi and her husband, Yukio Kozawa, the family and business survived and thrived.

First established in the Los Feliz neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tokio Florist later relocated to 2718 Hyperion Avenue in Silver Lake following WWII—and was designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM) in 2019.

Spanning four generations, The Huntington Library’s Sakai, Kozawa, and Kawakami families’ papers trace these families’ histories in Japan and Southern California—and throughout their experiences with wartime incarceration. 

This collection contains correspondences, photographs, ephemera, and other materials on their family life; and business records, architectural drawings, and similar documents relating to their floral enterprise, Tokio Florist. 

The Sakai, Kozawa, and Kawakami families’ papers are part of the Huntington’s Pacific Rim collections. 

The collection can be requested through the Huntington Library Catalog; the finding aid is accessible through the Online Archive of California.