Filoli, a National Trust Historic Site, is a historic house, garden, and nature preserve located south of San Francisco. Over the course of its 100-year history, two families—the Bourns and the Roths—owned the estate, but they represent only one dimension of the story. In the spring of 2021, Filoli highlighted four Asian Americans who helped build the Filoli community and steward the estate: two staff members who worked for the Roths, a floriculturist who transformed the garden’s textures, and a famed landscape architect instrumental in preserving Filoli for the public.

These stories are crucial to grounding Filoli—the home of two wealthy white families—in the broader context of California history and were the impetus behind the exhibition “Stories of Resilience.” It explores the histories of exclusion that affected individuals connected to the estate, including discriminatory laws that targeted Asian Americans, like the Chinese Exclusion Act and the forced relocation and incarceration of the Japanese community by the federal government during World War II.

Teikichi Taga (1880-1963)

Teikichi Taga was a butler for the Roths, the second family that lived at Filoli, from 1917 to 1959. In 1906, he emigrated from the Okayama prefecture of Japan to California at age 26 where he initially worked as a laundryman in San Francisco. He later became a butler for Lurline Roth’s mother, Lillie Low Matson, before working for the Roths at Filoli. The 1940 census shows that Taga and his wife Haruko, a dressmaker, lived in San Francisco’s Japantown rather than on site at Filoli.

During World War II, at the age of 62, Taga was forcibly relocated and incarcerated along with his family. Executive Order 9066, issued by President Roosevelt in February 1942 after the attack on Pearl Harbor, forced 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry into internment camps. After leaving their homes and anything they couldn’t carry, incarcerated families lived in barracks with no running water, surrounded by barbed wire, and armed guards.

Two-thirds of internees were American citizens, including Taga’s daughter, Nobuko. He and his wife Haruko were sent to Abraham (later called Topaz) camp in central Utah, while Nobuko was sent to the Tule Lake and then Heart Mountain camps. After returning from being incarcerated, Taga ran the Roths’ apartment in San Francisco and retired with Haruko in a house near Golden Gate Park. We have no record of where Nobuko ended up after her release.

Americans on the West Coast supported the restriction, using Chinese laborers as scapegoats for declining wages. Some legislators were equally concerned about losing the racial purity of their white communities. The act, which was widely evaded, was not repealed until 1943. The legacy of this discriminatory legislation is with us still today, as anti-Asian bigotry and violence continue to affect our Bay Area community.

Toichi Domoto (1902-2001)

A floriculturist and nurseryman, Toichi Domoto supplied plants for Filoli during the Roth era. Japanese growers were foundational to the Bay Area cut flower industry, and Domoto carried on the tradition of his father and uncles who founded Domoto Brothers, Inc., in the 1880s. Their nursery was the first in Northern California to commercially produce ornamental plants imported from Japan, like wisteria, Japanese maples, azaleas, and camellias. It was nicknamed “Domoto College” since many young Japanese men who trained there later founded their own Bay Area nurseries.

Domoto opened his own nursery in 1926, shortly before his father’s nursery closed due to the Great Depression. During World War II, Domoto had to leave the business in the hands of his bank manager when his family was forcibly incarcerated at the Amache camp in Colorado. Domoto’s daughter Marilyn was born the day before they reported to the assembly center—they called her an “evacuation baby.” Domoto’s father died in the camp at age 77.

Japanese Incarceration resulted in a massive loss of property and community in the Bay Area. Despite returning to continued discrimination, Domoto rebuilt his business. The Domoto family remained influential in the introduction of Japanese plants and cultivars to California gardens like Filoli.

Mai Kitazawa Arbegast (1922-2012)

A celebrated Bay Area landscape architect, Mai Kitazawa Arbegast had strong ties to Filoli. She grew up in San Jose, where her family ran the Kitazawa Seed Company. They supplied Asian vegetable seeds to Japanese American farmers in California and Oregon. Arbegast and her family were also forcibly incarcerated during World War II.

Arbegast was a professor of landscape architecture at U.C. Berkeley before she opened her own firm in 1967. She specialized in planting design and notably worked on the planting restoration of Hearst Castle and the renovation of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.

Arbegast was instrumental in persuading Lurline Roth to donate Filoli to the National Trust. She painted a picture of it becoming the “Wisley of the West,” referencing an iconic garden in England. Once the donation was official, Arbegast briefly oversaw Filoli’s garden operations and hired a head gardener to care for the estate. She went on to be a member of Filoli’s Board of Trustees.

Willa Brock is the manager of interpretation and learning experiences at Filoli. When she's not exploring new stories about the historic house and garden, she enjoys hiking, reading Agatha Christie mysteries, and watching the sunset from the Bernal Heights summit in San Francisco.