Isao Fujimoto

Dr. Isao Fujimoto’s memoire Bouncing Back: Community, Resilience, and Curiosity, perfectly encapsulates the irrepressible spirit that he brought to all of his life experiences and social contributions. Isao has been described as a “hummingbird,” moving ceaselessly from person to person, organization to organization, place to place, cross-pollinating ideas, experience, and perspectives from people around the state and around the world. He brought a generous and welcoming energy to all of his relationships, asking insatiable questions and sharing jokes, stories and a ready laugh.

His journey began on the Yakima Indian Reservation where his Japanese immigrant parents were able to farm shielded by the Alien Land Laws of the time. During World War II Isao and his family were incarcerated with hundreds of thousands of other Japanese and Japanese Americans in an internment camp. After growing up in the rural areas of Alameda County, Isao attended UC Berkeley where he participated in Cal Indo, an exchange program with student leaders in Indonesia. His international experiences continued when he was drafted to serve as an Army correspondent in Korea. Isao followed his passion for education as a high school teacher and through graduate training at Stanford University, the historically Black Howard University and finally Cornell University for a degree in rural sociology. While pursuing doctoral field work in the Philippines a family tragedy required his return to the United States without completing his degree.

He was recruited to UC Davis in 1967 to help build the newly-founded Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences, the Community Development Graduate Group and the program in Asian American Studies. At UC Davis Isao became deeply involved in applied research and community engagement around farmworker rights and the social implications of industrial agriculture. This work included critical attention to UC Davis’s role in these systems and concerted efforts to improve the university’s support of these disadvantaged communities.

Isao expanded the boundaries of pedagogy through his popular Urban Community Resources class in which he embedded students with residents and community organizations for several days in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. He described the rationale for this approach to experiential education as grounded in the principles of community development. "We want students to go to these communities and find out what the solutions are. The best way is to meet all kinds of groups that are working together to solve problems.”

Isao used the same experiential approach in his UC Summer Abroad program, "Community & Everyday Life in Japan," at Ryukoku University in which he “put California students in touch with Japanese activists working on ways to improve their communities." He taught this course for over 20 years, a testimony to its popularity and enduring value.

As part of his deep commitment to the concerns of marginalized communities and issues of social justice, Isao was also instrumental in the establishment of the Asian American Studies (ASA) Program in 1970, one of the first in the country. The first Asian American studies course was offered in winter of 1969 and featured Filipino farm labor organizers Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz as guest speakers. Isao's vision of Asian American studies was always deeply grounded in what is now described as “engaged scholarship” and crossed ethnic/racial boundaries to link communities and struggles. Throughout his life, Isao contributed generously to the development and well-being of ASA in many various capacities that led to its departmental status in 2009. Isao had an abiding love and care for Asian American studies, its faculty, students, staff and alumni over his many decades at UC Davis. His life-long commitment to uplift the voices of the marginalized through teaching and organizing helps us reimagine the fundamental values and practices of public higher education and public scholarship.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Isao played key roles in supporting student and community organizing to develop key local institutions such as the Davis Farmer’s Market and the Davis Food Co-op. Indeed, at one point there were five organizations operating from his back porch and his house became a refuge for students involved in advocacy around safe food, alternative energy, family and organic farming and other causes of community action.

He also used his expertise in rural community development to guide the development of the California Institute for Rural Studies, the Rural Development Leadership Network, the National Center for Appropriate Technology, Community University Research and Action for Justice, and the Central Valley Partnership for Immigrant Civic Participation. Isao would base his doctoral dissertation, earned at the age of 76, on his leadership as facilitator for the Central Valley Partnership . The dissertation chronicled the organizing of immigrant rights organizations throughout what Isao lovingly termed the “dynamic mosaic” of the Central Valley.

In all of these settings, he deployed research as a means to lift up the voices of the marginalized populations and to influence political and economic to better address their needs and interests. Isao’s energy, enthusiasm, empathy, tirelessness, selflessness, and wisdom have come to symbolize the best of what our state stands for and the vision for which it strives. He labored for his entire life to ensure that our society welcomes, celebrates, and enfranchises all people in a “more perfect union. His life work, in and out of the academy, was not only community engaged but also intersectional at its core. He understood deeply the interconnections that hold us all together as he sought to bring out the best in all of us.

Isao retired as a Senior Lecturer Emeritus in 1994, but remained devoted to his research, writing, teaching and community work for decades afterwards.

The first paragraph of Isao’s dissertation speaks to his credo simply and powerfully. “Community development is about doing. Its action is directed towards changing conditions, improving the quality of life, especially for communities and people who have been historically, structurally, or systematically marginalized. Community development aims to improve the lives of people living in poverty, whether in the Central Valley of California or in Third World countries. However, experts in community development are just as often found among practitioners in the field as among academics, researchers or directors of agencies.”

UC Davis honored Isao in 2002 with the naming of a building in the residential complex of The Colleges of La Rue. In 2016, he earned the UC system’s Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award, which recognizes scholarly work or educational service since retirement by a UC emeritus or emerita in the humanities or social sciences." Isao’s additional honors include the Excellence in Instruction award from the Rural Sociology Society and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences' Outstanding Faculty Advisor award.

One of his many admirers composed a haiku in his honor.

Orange persimmons
Sign of a good happy life
Isao’s playful laugh

Isao is pre-deceased by his parents, Taichi and Ayako Fujimoto; sisters Toyoko, Keiko and Shoko; and his brother Donald. He is survived by his wife of 34 years, Christine Fry; their daughter Esumi; sons Caedmon and Basho and their mother, Linda Wilson; grandchildren Bela Buson, Kodo and Ruby Umiko; brother Kazuya (Dorothy); sisters Yoshiko (Tad), Motoko (Masao), Coleen (Ted), Janet (Jack), Annie, Shigeko and Tomiko (Pat); in addition to many nieces, nephews and, of course, students, colleagues, and friends from around the world.

Catherine Brinkley
Richard S. Kim
Jonathan London
Anne Visser

Photo credit: UC Davis graduate student Scott Tsuchitani