The stories about the Friends of Mukai and their determination to save the Mukai Farm & Garden read like a cliffhanger in early Beachcomber articles. A scrappy group of lawyers, preservationists, librarians, organizers and supporters persevered through lawsuits, setbacks and uncertainty to ensure that the property truly belonged to the Vashon community.
“This Place Matters” was their rallying call to preserve the Mukai house and strawberry barreling plant from anonymity and misuse. Not just for the history, but for what it can tell us about ourselves. Today.
Why the effort? Why the passion? That nondescript address is home to many stories: a Japanese style garden designed by a woman, a rare responsibility. A family innovation of a preservative technique in fruit packing that led to becoming a major local employer. The address that shipped strawberries around the nation and to Smuckers, the home canners’ competition.
The Mukais were neighbors: Kuni opened her garden for cherry blossom viewing and tea parties; Masa was an active member of the Sportsmen’s Club and business community. To save the home and business abandoned as the family fled Roosevelt’s 1942 executive order 9066 to round up and incarcerate fellow citizens honors lost friends.
The Mukai family stories continue to influence island life 76 years after their departure.
The Friends of Mukai fit a lot into the four years since acquiring the property. After winning court cases with excellent pro bono legal work, the group used their shared expertise to gather grants and the professional services needed to restore the neglected site. The growing group of friends managed to accomplish several projects:
• Secure $820,000 in state, county and cultural grants to begin capital planning and restoration.
• Start the makeover of the home with electrical and sidewalk replacement and an accessible elevator.
• Spruce up the farmhouse kitchen, restoring it to its 1940’s glory.
• Give Kuni Mukai’s garden ponds a historically accurate facelift to repair leaks and cracks. Each rock was marked when it was removed to replace it in its original location.
• Update and convert the Barreling Plant into a community space with input from you all, for gathering, sharing and celebrating.
• Host many free cultural, historical and arts events.
Beyond the rebuilding of the farm and garden, the Friends of Mukai hope it will become a place special to Vashon for what the Mukai’s story can offer us: To celebrate and learn about multiple cultures and contributions of Americans of Japanese descent; to tell the stories of the Mukai farmstead, special garden design and island agriculture; to save a place that has meaning for who we are and who we hope to become; to share history that offers us a reminder and opportunity to understand our hard chapters and to create a community place to share our histories and cultures.
How will this place matter to you, me, or our shared communities? How will the story of the Mukais, Americans of Japanese descent, touch our lives? Join us through volunteering, donations and becoming a friend. Meet the diverse and fascinating group of island Japanese Americans and Friends of Mukai. Visit the Heritage Museum’s exhibit on how interment unfolded on Vashon, “Joy and Heartache: Japanese Americans on Vashon.” Join in on planning for the uses of the Barreling Plant to begin soon. Stay tuned for invitations. Come to the Farm & Garden for Japan Festival, Saturday, Sept. 22, and the Seattle Miyagi-Kai Concert, Sunday, Sept. 30, at Camp Burton Lodge. Read the Mukai’s story at MukaiFarmandGarden.org. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram, or just stop by an open house.
Mukai Farm & Garden is a quiet reminder of what may be asked of us, what we need as a community to understand and how we might change our small part of the world.
What is history but a way to ask ourselves: What would I have done and better, knowing what I know? It is the story of ourselves, no matter how distant and foreign it may seem. A cautionary tale of how we value place, our stories, our neighbors.
Celebrate the history of the Mukais’ contributions and resilience. Help us create new Mukai Farm & Garden stories and shape how history will live through us. And as we learn and practice how to evolve in the face of fear, bias and misunderstandings, perhaps our lessons will ripple out. A stone thrown from a quiet shore.
— Mary Rabourn is a Friends of Mukai board member.
