World War II led to unfair treatment of its first caretakers

The Japanese Tea Garden has been called different things in its 86-year history, but has retained much of its beauty, after surviving a sad period in U.S. history when the tides of war caused unrest at home.

Many visitors and residents have found serenity at the site, with its open-air pagoda, floral displays, ornamental cabbage, winding pathways, rock bridges, fishponds, water lilies and a 60-foot waterfall.

Kimi Eizo Jingu, a Japanese immigrant, artist and tea importer, helped design what originally was called the Japanese Sunken Garden, according to news archives. Local prison laborers began building the site in 1917 in Brackenridge Park, in a former quarry.

Jingu and his wife, Miyoshi, were invited by the city to live in a house at the garden, where they raised eight children. The Jingus served green tea and green tea ice cream to visitors at the garden.

Jingu died in 1938, leaving his wife to run the garden.

Then, the Dec. 7, 1941, bombing of Pearl Harbor set off a backlash of prejudice against Japanese Americans. Across the country, about 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced by the U.S. government to live in detention camps.

Two of Jingu's sons served in the Army during the war. One was awarded the Purple Heart.

But Jingu's widow and daughters couldn't avoid wartime sentiments at home. In July 1942, they had their water cut off and were evicted. A local church helped them find housing on French Place.

At the time, the United States had good relations with China. Some Chinese Americans would wear buttons saying "I am Chinese" to avoid being mistaken as Japanese.

The garden was renamed the Chinese Sunken Gardens, a name that still corresponded with Sunken Garden Theater, which had opened in 1930. For about 20 years, a Chinese American family managed the garden and a snack area called the Chinese Tea Garden.

After the war ended in 1945, the site remained the Chinese Sunken Gardens for 38 years. In June 1983, then-City Councilman Van Archer announced his intent to "right an old wrong," the San Antonio Express-News reported.

"I do intend to try and rectify a wrong and injustice heaped on loyal American Japanese right here in San Antonio," he said.

Some, including Express-News columnist Maury Maverick, had called for years for restoration of the site's original name.

Archer said a trip to New York, where he had met visiting Japanese businessmen a week earlier, persuaded him to try to compensate "for the wrongs suffered by an American minority group caught in the madness and hysteria of war."

Although Jingu's widow had died, remaining members of his family who had moved to California supported Archer's effort.

Another city councilman, Frank Wing, suggested renaming the site the Oriental Sunken Gardens, to avoid excluding Chinese Americans. But he didn't block the effort to restore the park's original name.

The City Council voted unanimously in July 1983 to rename the site the Japanese Sunken Gardens, the Express-News reported. More than a year later, in October 1984, the city again renamed the site the Japanese Tea Garden, and apologized to the Jingus for evicting them.

Since then, some of the Jingus have returned, to reflect on their family's past and share their affection for the garden.

"This was a wonderful back yard. The garden is just as beautiful as it was when I lived here," Mabel Jingu Enkoji, one of Jingu's daughters who grew up there, told the Express-News while visiting last year from California with two of her grandchildren.

The garden, a state historic landmark, closed late last year for repairs, then reopened in the spring. The Japan American Society of San Antonio has asked the city to remove an old entrance on the south end of the site that reads, "Entrance to Chinese Tea Garden."

The site, still often referred to in the plural as the Japanese Tea Gardens, can be reserved, and is open daily to the public from 8 a.m. to dusk.

A $115 million bond issue to be voted on Nov. 4 includes $750,000 for structural repairs to the garden's pagoda, and to seal leaks in its pond walls. City Parks and Recreation Director Malcolm Matthews said there might be enough money left over to remove the old entryway.