The Other California

In this last episode of The Other California, we return to the town where we started, Woodlake. Here, Olga and Manuel Jimenez talk about the legacy of the Bravo Lake Botanical Garden and why listening to the stories of those we see as “the other” matter.

A Japanese farming community called Yamato Colony took roots in Livingston in 1907; by 1940, about 70 Japanese families were farming more than 3700 acres in Livingston. Two years later, its residents were sent away by the U.S. government to concentration camps. We meet 97-year-old Sherman Kishi, who returned after the war to grow grapes and then almonds on his farm. We also hear about the legacy of a Sikh family who left India fifty years ago and ended up creating a cultural oasis in Livingston. Plus, sweet potato farmers look back at when their families immigrated from the Azores.

Taft was described in 1912 as “perhaps the liveliest town in the state,” a frontier community of the sort that movie fans once expected Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable to brawl in. Of course, it’s changed tremendously since its early frontier years, but one thing remains the same: it’s still an oil town through and through and the people who live here want it to stay that way. In this episode, we meet some of oil’s biggest supporters. And a high school culinary teacher helps students understand each other through local recipes: Native American, Samoan, Oaxacan.

In this week’s episode, host Alice Daniel talks to writer and journalist Mark Arax about what it means to grapple with trying to truly understand the place where he was born and still calls home, the San Joaquin Valley. Mark has been called a 21st Century John Steinbeck for his books that pry into the soul of California. His most recent work, "The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California," is a national bestseller and has been hailed by critics as one of the most important books ever written about the West.

Kids in small towns don’t always have enough to do after school but a free boxing gym in Avenal is a place of dreams for many youth including two fourth graders who are training hard to win tournaments. In this episode, we meet Jaylene and Jordan, sparring partners whose love for the sport is infectious. A few old timers in Avenal walk us through the town’s history and a young city manager explains why he returned to improve his hometown after attending a prestigious university.