Smith Mountain’s policy of segregating minorities into

storytalking

With “Postcards,” creative non-fiction stories grounded in place, we aspire to create a new cartography of California. For us, literature and language are as much about marking and representing space, as they are about storytelling.   <img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-16546" data-attachment-id="16546" data-permalink="https://boomcalifornia.org/2020/05/11/acts-of-grace-memory-journeys-through-the-san-joaquin-valley/92844980_621832775035250_895563585307017216_n-1/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/92844980_621832775035250_895563585307017216_n-1-e1589263371179.jpg?fit=1572%2C2009&amp;ssl=1" data-orig-size="1572,2009" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="92844980_621832775035250_895563585307017216_n (1)" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/92844980_621832775035250_895563585307017216_n-1-e1589263371179.jpg?fit=235%2C300&amp;ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/92844980_621832775035250_895563585307017216_n-1-e1589263371179.jpg?fit=801%2C1024&amp;ssl=1" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-16546" src="https://i0.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/92844980_621832775035250_895563585307017216_n-1-e1589263371179.jpg?resize=900%2C1150&#038;ssl=1" alt="92844980_621832775035250_895563585307017216_n (1)" width="900" height="1150" data-recalc-dims="1">Original Art by Fernando Mendez Corona Brynn Saito with photographs by Dave Lehl Places are alive like ghosts are alive: subtle, unpredictable shape-shifters, infused with memory and emotion. The spirit of a place—the genius loci, as the ancients called it—rises from the land’s stories, its unique matrix of weather, struggle, celebration, and blood. There are places we return to again and again to find our stories. We change; they change. The stories we tell take on lives of their own. The story of my Korean American and Japanese American families begins in Dinuba and Reedley—two rural towns in the heart of California’s agricultural basin, each about 13 miles east of Highway 99, which runs midway between the Pacific and the Sierras. Sometimes, the tale begins in the aftermath of war and incarceration: my father’s parents, Alma Teranishi and Mitsuo Saito, returned to California to resettle in Reedley after their release in 1945 from the Gila River concentration camp in southern Arizona—the place where they met, married, and gave birth to their first child. My mother’s father, Samuel Oh, returned from the European frontlines to his hometown of Dinuba where a divorce awaited him—a separation that, ultimately, set the stage for his meeting and marrying my grandmother, Marilyn. Sometimes, the story begins earlier than that: the first generation arriving on Angel Island then laboring their way to the southern San Joaquin Valley—a place that would, over the course of the 20th century, become the source of 25% of the nation’s harvested food. Almonds, olives, stone fruit, citrus, vegetables, berries alfalfa, winter wheat: crops planted and picked by migrant and immigrant workers, generations of laborers making their lives in the shadow of the distant Sierras. On a gray, post-rain November morning, I travel with my folks from our home in Fresno back to Reedley and Dinuba. Rows of vine fruit wind along a diverted Kings River and mountain slopes sport majestic, white-painted letters signifying small farming towns: the “R”, the “S”, the “D.” We visit the church where my mother grew her faith; the stadium where my father captained his high school football team; the side lot location of the tree my father and his older brother set fire to—with a boy still in the branches (who, luckily, survived the prank); the old home, where Dad’s dad carved, in their front yard, a stone pond for koi. What follows is a reflection in prose and photographs tracing the morning’s journey. <img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-16540" data-attachment-id="16540" data-permalink="https://boomcalifornia.org/2020/05/11/acts-of-grace-memory-journeys-through-the-san-joaquin-valley/dsc00235/" data-orig-file="https://i1.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00235.jpg?fit=3000%2C2000&amp;ssl=1" data-orig-size="3000,2000" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;ILCE-9&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1575032024&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;24&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;250&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.00125&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="DSC00235" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://i1.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00235.jpg?fit=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i1.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00235.jpg?fit=900%2C600&amp;ssl=1" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-16540" src="https://i1.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00235.jpg?resize=900%2C600&#038;ssl=1" alt="DSC00235" width="900" height="600" data-recalc-dims="1">Gregg Saito, downtown Reedley, CA. “In the summers, your dad used to run barefoot through the streets to get to the town pool,” says my mother as we drive the streets of Reedley, my father’s hometown. I imagine Dad young and running, his little-brother spirit, his charming, mischievous smile—all of the energy of someone totally beloved by his mother, occasionally scolded by his volatile father, teased by his older brother. High school football captain, eventual P.E. teacher, basketball ref, football, basketball, track, and golf coach—and trainer of two, lazy teenaged daughters: I remember my dad up at dawn, cheering us into shape. At 72 years old, my father still runs—many miles each week in the morning’s winter cold. My father has been running his entire life. <img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-16541" data-attachment-id="16541" data-permalink="https://boomcalifornia.org/2020/05/11/acts-of-grace-memory-journeys-through-the-san-joaquin-valley/dsc00374/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00374.jpg?fit=3000%2C2000&amp;ssl=1" data-orig-size="3000,2000" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;5.6&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;ILCE-9&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1575033935&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;70&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;500&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.002&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="DSC00374" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00374.jpg?fit=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00374.jpg?fit=900%2C600&amp;ssl=1" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-16541" src="https://i0.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00374.jpg?resize=900%2C600&#038;ssl=1" alt="DSC00374" width="900" height="600" data-recalc-dims="1">Janelle Oh Saito, Iglesia Nueva Esperanza on K Street, Dinuba, CA. There are close to 20 churches in less than two square miles in Dinuba. My mother came of age in the Dinuba Presbyterian Church, now the Iglesia Nueva Esperanza. Graced by palms and pistache trees, the formidable building towers above us, as we wander along K and Merced Streets. My mother’s grandfather, Tai Eun, fled Korea for America at the height of the brutal Japanese occupation, eventually establishing himself as a lay leader in Dinuba’s tight-knit Korean Christian community. After it disbanded, my mom and her two brothers started their Sundays at Dinuba Presbyterian, a mostly white congregation. In her day, the Korean American population in Dinuba was larger than in nearby towns, though much smaller than in urban centers like LA or San Francisco. As the decades passed, my mother’s faith continued to anchor her—eventually, she became a lay leader in the Japanese American Christian church (a story for another essay). “Mother, I watch,” begins a poem I wrote for her. “Strong, you walk tall reflecting mountains. / Water grows more sure of its strength as rain rushes beneath / cool elm winds. / You are not / anymore a shard; history’s strong song makes us whole.” <img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-16544" data-attachment-id="16544" data-permalink="https://boomcalifornia.org/2020/05/11/acts-of-grace-memory-journeys-through-the-san-joaquin-valley/dsc00170_1/" data-orig-file="https://i2.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00170_1.jpg?fit=3000%2C2000&amp;ssl=1" data-orig-size="3000,2000" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;ILCE-9&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1575031498&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;31&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;100&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.003125&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="DSC00170_1" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://i2.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00170_1.jpg?fit=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i2.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00170_1.jpg?fit=900%2C600&amp;ssl=1" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-16544" src="https://i2.wp.com/boomcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dsc00170_1.jpg?resize=900%2C600&#038;ssl=1" alt="DSC00170_1" width="900" height="600" data-recalc-dims="1">Gregg Saito, Reedley Buddhist Church, 15th Street.

history’s strong song makes us whole.”

the “R”, the “S”, the “D.”

cartography of California.

Content that gets clicked on, however, isn’t always accurate or high quality.