mirage book festival. and we visit fresno, california, to talk with local authors and visit the cities literary sites. a few over the programs on booktv this weekend. for a complete schedule, booktv.org. 48 yours of nonfiction backs and authors, television for serious readers. >> the middle of california is called the central valley but the extra valley goes from the place -- the central valley goes from bakersfield to sacramento and beyond it's 400 miles long. we're in the middle of the the biggest, most industrialized farm belt in the united states, if not the world.

>> welcome to fresno, california, on booktv. over the next 90 minutes we'll travel the city to talk with local authors about the history of fresno and surrounding areas. first up, off to david masumoto talk about child, race, and identity in california's central valley. >> one of my book ises called "harvest son" and looking at the immigration from my grandparents from japan to america and then trying to plant roots in american soil and facing the contradictionses of america, the racism of it, and the struggles to try establish themselves. japanese americans have a vibrant agricultural history. the was the only point for them in american economy and american

-- internment in world were 25 sifted that and can be send traited the stronger sense of being japanese-american. my generation has shift its classically immigrant story. my generation we call ourselves third generation in america. >> the time, spring and summer of 1942. the place, ten different relocation centers in california,ers are, utah, idaho, wyoming, colorado, and arkansas. >> the experience of my parents during relocation and world war ii internment of japanese more thans were very common. there is would crisis, turmoil, historia, and didn't know what to do. so i think like many of them they realized they had to just accept what was happening, do their own type of civil disobedience but accept this broader frame of this history that was unfolding along with

all the chaos and uncertainty. so they did -- growing up they rarely talked about it. and i only started piecing together stories i heard here and there, reading about and it understanding what a traumatic moment it was when you try to establish yourself in america, and trying to literally plant roots he but also at the same time understand that this is a country that didn't want them, that told them they were the enemy, they needed to good back home. of course the irony for my parents, they were been here, back home was here. and it was that struggle, i think, that as i grew older and began to understand part of the idea of struggle, i think of the struggles i went through were dwarfed by the moment in history and how they had the rye resilience to work through that and come back and literally plant roots in the valley in our farm. my parents did not talk about it. my dad was this tradition

gentlelady -- traditional farmer, very stoic, and they wouldn't talk about it. and i think because they carried within them a kind of a shame, a guilt, that is imbedded when you're accused of being something that you're not. so agap to probe into this, read more, and talk to other families and gradually -- took tomorrow but gradually i heard stories from my father, a story from money mom, my dad would talk about when way were won burning some wood from dead trees he said, let me tell you about a fire i once made and told me the story how when they had to leave, my dad was so mad he decided to say he's going to burn all their possessions they had that they couldn't carry. because he didn't want to leave it for people who didn't want them. thought this is my dad, this

quiet, reserved farmer showing this protest? sort of like japanese-american lives mattered, and it was amazing to her the stories so gradually as a writer you piece together the stories and the one takeway with that, the one takeaway i had from that was this idea of silence. and it's hard to write about silence because writers think about words and dialogue, but part of my writing was imbedded in this history of understanding what that silence means and how that silence carried everything from anywhere shame and guilt but also their resilience that they had to respond, to come back to california to say we're part of america. we did not own land before the war. as most japanese-americans did not. when we came back, when my parents came back after the relocation camps my father realized the way to get ahead in

america was to even property. so he took this huge gamble and he bought 40 acres we farm now. my grandmother, she was appalled and i heard about the story. they argued, because my grandmother said, why do you get -- buy land here in america? because they take things away. she was absolutely right. because of the hysteria of world war ii they took everything away from japanese-american so she was right to have this bitter attitude. my father at the same time understood that in order to establish yourself, you need to become a farmer. you needed to transition from farmworker to farmer. so he bought this land. that day they were leaving this rent shock they lived on to move here to this house that was on this property, my grandmother refused to go. so she stayed in this little shack, and my dad got mad and he

said, look, i'm going to wait in the car until the sun sets. my grandfather, who was alive then, was happy. he said, we get a masumoto farm. i'm waiting in the car. so he waited in the car and that's sun went down my grandmother came out of the house carrying this black suitcase with seven simmed -- stenciled number and from when the war interned and they drove to the far. it was a capturing that whole sense of history that i try to write about and is one of my favorite stories that i end up writing about and thinking a lot another how things beginning and how farms are part of this whole wave of history that embodies all of the elements of history. >> our farm faced many challenges and it's really in request two generations.

one beings my dad's generation where post-world war ii no one wanted to buy food grown by the enemy, which was the japanese-american, so they struggled. amazingly, they did what a lot of good farmers do, they united together, formed cooperatives, they started jointly marketing things, and they found a way to work through the system and work the system. when i came back to the farm, the overt racism was not there but their still imbedded dynamics and biases and one bias was against large versus small. there was this drive that you need to expandure farm, you need to grow things chat are cheaper, more efficient and more productive, and i came back think, that's not the farm i want to do. want to grow something that has quality, that has flavor, and, again, that had that back story that came with it. and so that's one of the reasons why i talked my dad into saying, let's start farming organically,

because i think it's a consumer -- a part of the public who appreciates this value that we're growing, and all through the course of our family's history, you think about it, we were driven by values more than anything else. my grandparents depend come to america because they wanted to become the wealthiest people in the world. they were driven here by dreams and hopes. my parents came back from the relocation camps to farm because they were driven by initially desperation, and also the sense of wanting to become american. and plant roots here. and i came back to the farm knowing that i wanted to continue that legacy in many ways, and at the same time, write and tell stories about the thing is was witnessing. i was like lots off farm kids the grew up in the '60s incouldn't wait to get off the farm. no one wanted to farm and i grew minute if lie japanese-american

community and all of us went off to college and that was the goal for all of our parents and our generation, to get the kid off the farm, get them educated so they could find something better. so i ran off to came thought would never bring me back to farming if went to berkeley and studied sociology i. thought that would never bring me back to farming. but then i did -- i spent two years living in japan as an exchange student and that changed my life. rye touch agriculture that was around me but realizing was not japanese, way japanese-american, and i spent half the time working the small. rice farm that my grandmother had left, and working alongside of her brother in japan, and i remember stopping and thinking this is exactly what i'm trying return to away from. what it? it was the call of the land. but the dynamic was, did not understand how to grow rice. i understood -- i did not

understand how to grow rice but i understood how to grow pieces and realized i need to come back here to see what this is like. so i came back and shocked my dad, saying i want to come back and farm a little with you. so he was shocked because he thought up in of his sons, none of his children were going to farm, just like most farms around here. so the transition was wonderful in the sense that my dad was very quiet and very reserved. so when i came back to the farm, started making mistakes, started doing things there was a lot -- a few soft grunts, nodding the head, and then silence. and that is when i began to go crazy, tell me am i doing it right or wrong? how do you feel about it? and he was wonderful because he just allowed me to fail. and i think that was the biggest takeaway i had because when i came back, i also started looking the landscape of farming and understanding these -- the growing pressure to grow in size

to grow crops to grow crops that are designed for a mass market, and i came back wanting to do something different and that is why we start farming organically, and at the same time hoping that this precious fruit we grew would fit in an organic marketplace that hat flavor and character, and the back story of the fruit that we grow and seemed to have all worked. my daughter, as she begins to farm with me issue began to think -- we often talk, is my role a teacher, mentor or just passing on something and hand something down. it turns out it's a little of everything. think my daughter wants us to be partners which is wasn't i was expecting you think of your best teachers, they were teacher, not partners, but then i started thinking more about and it maybe this is part of a millenial way of looking the world, where the world is much more inclusive and

as as oppose heed hire, a -- hierarchical and now she is a partner on the farm, understanding how she want us us to make decisions together itching thought i'd be have happy if you made that decision but she wanted to do it together and who could complain about that. so i have to stop myself from thinking this not the story i thought would happen but it's a different and unique narrative. there's this ironic twist being japanese-american and understanding the whole legacy of immigrants immigrants and imn that affected my family when the first arrived from japan and understanding california agriculture that is swirling and churning and growing, expanding are, all at the same time, this whole issue of immigrants and immigration are part of the fabric of agriculture. it continues today. so that the workers that we have

are part of this whole new definition of what does it mean to be an american and an immigrant, and they're all part of the food system that we have. i hope people take away from my stories and my books a sense of authenticity. this is the real world. i'm not a journalist who spends one summer on a farm and then writes about food. i've lived this. my family has been part of this for generations. this is what i live and breathe, and hurt from at the same time because i try to write about that authentic life of farming and being a family the same time and the struggles and challenges we have within that, economic forces, environmental. climate change, prices, shifting weather, those are all part of what we do here on the farm. that's part of, again, the story of food that i try to write about. i hope people take away that real taste of the food from