Thursday night Julie Marie Myatt, Ashley Walden and I attended a history presentation at the Fowler library: Japanese in Fowler. This presentation was made by our friend George Teraoke. He originally presented it, as an Historical Society event at the Buddhist church back in January or so. Since then he updated it. This was a recorded, projected video accompanied by some cultural artifacts on display. George introduced the video and answered questions afterward.
Most of the attendance seemed to be Historical Society folks, many of whom we had met before. Mrs. Mukai, of the Buddhist Church, and Gary (one of her sons) were there.
Afterward Ashley, Julie and I all had conversations with various individuals. One of the new people we met there was Penny M. Currently she and her husband live in Fresno but she’s from a longtime Fowler family.
On Friday morning we drove out to meet Carole Yukino Masumoto at her house on farmland just outside of town. She is the mother of David Mas Masumoto who joined us to help facilitate the conversation. Carole has completely lost her hearing so Mas typed questions for her on a laptop and she’d answer them. Carole is really lively and laughs a lot. She was a freshman at Fowler High School when she and her family left to be in interred at the “Gila River War Relocation Center.” When she left the internment camp, she spent 3 years in Los Angeles with her sister before moving back to Fresno County to marry her husband. Like her parents, Carole and her husband farmed in the Sanger/Fowler/Del Rey area, eventually owning a farm whose property straddles the Fowler/Del Rey border.
After Carole’s house we went to visit with Marie and Vernon Gonsalves who live on Sixth Street—the house with an American flag in the front yard. Since Cornerstone is embarking on The Hunger Cycle for our next few years of Los Angeles productions, we’re interested in incorporating related themes in our Institute production as well. One story we’d been told earlier is that there’s a couple that run a food pantry for Fowler out of their home. And it turns out that Marie, who’d attended our first library story circle, is the person I’d heard about earlier.
Marie and Vernon have been living in this house for 25 years, since Vernon retired from the Fowler police dept. Vernon worked for the Salvation Army for a time in their food distribution program. Eventually though he was frustrated with the red-tape involved in serving people in need. He and Marie have been helping people from their home for at least 30 years. They purchase some of the food themselves. At least one church has a standing food donation system and in December the high school has a massive food drive and all that the students bring in goes to the Gonsalves’ project. They pack up boxes of non-perishables. And they answer the door any time of day or night to people who need food. They ask them how many people in their family and they ask them if they live in Fowler. That’s it. They track how many people they server on a calendar for their own knowledge. It’s pretty amazing, in my opinion.
We spent almost 2 hours with Marie and Vernon. They showed us their food pantry and answered our questions about that. They are completely humble about this and talk like it’s the most normal thing in the world, rather than a huge act of personal generosity.
Their home is very well cared for—Vernon does carpentry and is handy with 
anything it seems—created a coy pond in the back yard, built unique birdhouses for awhile (which he mostly gave away), and he created a valentine of a garden for Marie—a trellis with flowers trained to grow in the shape of a heart. We sat in their dining room and they answered lots of questions about their lives, families, etc. Marie has a never-ending supply of neatly saved photographs and newspaper clippings about everything that interests her—particularly her hometown of Fowler, its people and history.
Friday night we were scheduled for a story circle with folks from the
Buddhist Church. George T was arranging it for us and he thought we’d have a pretty low turnout. He was right. We spent an hour talking with George and his wife Mary. One of the most helpful bits of conversation was this explanation from George: half (or more than half ?) of the members of the Buddhist Church of Fowler view it as a social organization, the other half view it as a spiritual organization. Those in the latter group, such as George, have a strong desire to open the church up to share this spiritual philosophy with the greater community whenever possible. Those in the former want the opposite.
George also expressed fears that those in the church who are not in favor of us living there might be dissuading others from participating by talking with us in a story circle. He also said he was worried that people might try to stir up trouble while we are living on the property. He also said no one is usually around the church during the time of year we are staying there. He also mentioned that he wished that we had planned to set up our housing units on the south side of the property, in the unpaved area rather than the north/paved area because of this: we’d be taking up parking for the Obon Festival and people don’t like to park on the street. I told him that I hadn’t known that, that I thought we were allowing for more parking by not setting them up in the bigger open area.
I thought about moving our temp buildings. But then I thought that having our housing in a dirt lot, while living with camp showers would lend to unhappiness. My general feeling and response to all of this stuff expressed here in this paragraph is that I cannot plan for excess negativity. We are acting in good faith and being clear and will bring a lot of positive energy while we are in residence. I am considering the delicate situation with regard to all our interactions and relations with this organization. Also, as Julie pointed out, George is anxious. He’s put himself out there in his community in supporting us and generating interest in what we are doing. He’s embarrassed by the ego that his fellow church members are operating from. He was mortified about the cost to us of engaging a lawyer. So some of his expressed fears are likely based in this unsteady place he has created within the Buddhist church.
We’ll be reaching out to some people who have told George that they’d be interested in talking with us, including Kerry Yo Nakagawa who among many talents and projects is the founder of the Nisei Baseball Research Project.
On Saturday morning, we headed to the library early. Our open/general story circle was schedule there for 12:30 to 2pm. Before that though, there was a presentation from a wildlife rescue organization. They brought and introduced about a dozen birds of prey as part of an educational program.
Afterward we set up for our Story Circle and were joined by three participants and eventually a fourth. This was a small and somewhat disappointing turn-out, though there were many good things too. Our participants were: Marie G (who we had spoken to for 2 hours the day before brought many clippings about Fowler), Mas (who we’d also spoken to in private interviews as well), and Shawna. We were joined by Clara B, who also had attended our first story circle.
Shawna grew up in Fowler and moved away for 15 years or so and has recently returned. Her son Zasou (?) was with her and her second child is due any minute. Her husband recently secured a fulltime job teaching at Reedley College. She mentioned a few times that she was an outsider and didn’t have much to contribute, but of course, she did. Clara and Marie represent a particular Fowler voice—retired women who are at least second generation Fowler who love their town very much but are not particularly adept at seeing experiences beyond their own. Their stories are similar and dominant in conversation. Mas’ presence was valuable in this conversation. Being a writer himself he asked good questions. He also balanced the energy in the room.
Afterward, Julie spent an hour meeting with the mayor Dave Cardenas, at his auto shop.
We grabbed lunch at Elaine’s and headed home.
[ Look at the street view of Elain's on the "Cornestone in Fowler" map linked on the right of this page! We learned from one of our conversations on this trip that Elaine’s was named for a woman who, along with a partner, took over the restaurant from the original owners. But Elaine was booted not long after because she turned out to be taking $ from the till. The owners now are Chinese. So we hear. ]
Due to our long delay in securing housing, we are behind in this story gathering process. A visit like this would have been fine a few months ago, but at this late date the lack of turnout is difficult. Even more, the lack of variety in people’s perspective on the town is challenging. We are not looking for a “dark underbelly” but rather story conflict, experiences and perspectives that create contrast.
As we plan our next visit we’ll be arranging some one-on-one interviews to help create an environment where people might share more personal experiences that illustrate some contrast. We’ll be attending the community cleanup event that meets in the park. Of course, we will continue to do outreach for project awareness and inviting people into the process as we can. We’ll be looking for auditioners soon!
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