Agricultural Roots
PLACEMAKING & PLACEKEEPING
Cover image: “Leo Oyama at Oyama Farm”, Quynh-Mai Nguyen, 2021
Much of the farm industry’s growth in the valley continues to rely on the contributions of Asian immigrants—their early stories often untold and unseen.
Client: Veggielution, County of Santa Clara
Community Partners: Japanese American Museum of San Jose, Filipino American National Historical Society, Yu-Ai Kai Japanese American Community Senior Service, LEAD Filipino, Society of Heart’s Delight, Bayani ng Kabataan, and De Anza College California History Center.
Growing AgriCultural Roots is a storytelling signage and placemaking project that highlights and memorializes the collective contributions of Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino immigrant farmworkers to Santa Clara County. Through artifacts, first-person narratives, cultural sharing, storytelling circles hosted by local community partners, 10 tri-lingual signposts translated in English Vietnamese, and Spanish, were installed at Veggielution farm, inviting visitors to explore the grounds by following the guided tour that connects history to place.
What does “The Valley of Heart’s Delight” mean to you?
Whose narratives does this phrase include?
Many elder locals who grew up here can often be heard reminiscing of those times where “back in the day, this region use to all be filled with nothing but dirt roads and orchards.”
Undepicted, past the imagery flowering orchards and pastoral settings are the working hands and faces of the Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino immigrant farmworkers who were brought over to the United States and have significantly contributed to the growth of the Valley’s farm industry.
These questions of “What does the Valley of Hearts Delight mean to you” and “Whose narratives does this phrase include” became a throughline across our research and community engagement efforts to uncover those stories.
