FOWLER, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – During World War II, Japanese-American families were forced from their homes and sent to internment camps.

Julie Maldonado’s family immigrated from Japan to Fowler, California, in the early 1900’s. But during World War II, her family’s American dream and livelihood were under threat, until neighbors stepped in.

Before children played at Shirakawa Park, it was farmland owned by Julie Maldonado’s family.

“My grandfather left Japan and arrived in Fowler around 1907,” Julie Maldonado said.

Her grandfather, Tokio Shirakawa, started as a laborer and worked to buy his own farm.

“He started a Central California farmers cooperative and headed it for 18 years,” Maldonado said.

In the 1940’s, Fowler was a small farming town of fewer than 2,000 people – mainly immigrants.

“Armenian and Japanese were the largest percentages of our population,” Fowler Mayor Juan Mejia said.

But, in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 90-66, which forced Japanese families from their homes and into internment camps.

“Either the night of or the day after Pearl Harbor, the FBI came and took my grandfather,” Maldonado said.

Julie’s grandmother, parents, aunts, and uncles were sent to Gila, Arizona.

“They never talked about what happened to them in internment camp. I guess it’s the Japanese culture. They just don’t talk about unpleasant things,” Maldonado said.

At the Fowler Branch Library, old high school yearbooks serve as physical proof of hardship.

“It says, ‘Because of the decreased attendance caused by the evacuation of Japanese in the spring of 42 and withdrawal of many students to war industry regions, there were four less teachers this year,'” Mejia said.

The town from Julie’s childhood would never be the same.

“There was a general store, some body shops, a Japanese grocery store, a Japanese tofu shop where they made tofu,” Maldonado said.

All gone, but among Fowler’s immigrant community, neighbors stepped in to help. Farming land that was not theirs and watching property, all to protect vulnerable families.

“Neighbor help neighbor. Store owner help store owner,” Mejia said.

One of the Japanese families impacted was the Hiyama family.

“My dad and Jess Hayes, which was another neighbor, they farmed the Hiyama place. Dad did most of it,” farmer James Oliver said.

Oliver’s family has farmed for over a century. He remembers his family’s stories, including the time they drove from Fowler to Arizona.

He said his father knew some people questioned why he would take care of the Hiyama farm at all.

“Some people didn’t really appreciate, you know, there was animosity there, let’s put it that way,” Oliver said.

While the country saw suspicion, Fowler saw neighbors and friends.

“The Armenian genocide, it had not been too long, you know, from when that took place. And we had the big migration of Armenians coming into Fowler just a few decades after that,” Mejia said.

A town shaped by one community’s memory of loss saw another forced from home, and some chose not to look away. The farm where this park now sits was cared for by the Findlays, a black couple.

“This farm, one that we’re sitting on, that’s now become a park named after my grandparents. A lot of people here, you know, did lose everything. So a big population that used to live here in Fowler did not return because they didn’t have anything to return to,” Maldonado said.

In some cases, Japanese-Americans did return to something. For families who endured internment, the pain was mostly silent.

“I think they were ashamed and embarrassed. And, you know, really, it was very traumatic. A lot of them had to leave their homes and businesses with very little notice, and they could only take two suitcases,” Maldonado said.

And Shirakawa Park became a tribute to a community whose story was largely untold.

“I kind of dedicated it to the whole Fowler community because they were all close-knit and they all endured together,” Maldonado said.

Because, in the middle of tough times, ordinary people chose trust over fear.

“They didn’t boast about it. And for them, it was neighbor helping neighbor,” Mejia said.

Since then, the town has grown, and the stories remain rooted. But the Fowler we know today wouldn’t be the same without its community.

“In one of our darkest hours as a country, the best of Fowler came through,” Mejia said.