Shibata is waiting on Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, two of the biggest days of the year for the flower industry, to bring a bump to sales. In the meantime, he’s hoping people continue to buy flowers.
“I kind of had this imaginary conversation with my dad,” Shibata said. His late father ran the company before he died in 2015. “And I heard him say, ‘Well, [the pandemic] is not like the problem we had.’ “
Shibata’s father ran the company during the 1940s and World War II. In 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans, including Shibata’s father, were sent to concentration camps in California and beyond.
“He [would say], ‘When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the government came and we were forced to leave our business behind with one week’s notice and leave our homes behind with one week’s notice … that was a problem,’ ” Shibata said. “As terrible as it is for us, it wasn’t like … what they went through.”
Given that, Shibata says he’s determined to get Mt. Eden Floral Company to its 115th year of service.
