POSTCARDS from FREMONT
a place that will always be ingrained in my memory
My experience in Fremont made me fall in love with America.
In 2004, as a high school exchange student, I took my first trip away from my native Thailand. I landed in the charming Michigan town of Fremont, and at 18 years old had my first experience with a different culture. I was surprised at how accepting of me the people of Fremont were, especially my host family, which has been a big support for me ever since. The help and kindness I received from the school and community were much more than I expected. My year in Fremont was one of the best experiences of my life, and it had a big impact on me. It not only shaped the way I see American society, but also the way I see myself.
Fremont boasts surprising amenities for a small community. It has many pieces of outdoor art, several parks, and an auditorium, among other things It is located on 800-acre Fremont Lake, and is only 45 minutes from the east shore of Lake Michigan. In 1927, the Gerber baby food company began production in Fremont, and its factory is still one of the largest employers in town. The other major employers are the hospital and the schools.
Once the exchange student program ended, I returned to Thailand to pursue my undergraduate degree. It was in Fremont, though, that my love of photography began. It was there that I had my first experience with film photography and the darkroom. It was there that I built a human-scale pinhole camera. The photographs I made in Fremont were included in local exhibitions and won awards.
This photographic connection is part of why I chose to photograph my old hometown again, when I returned to the U.S. 16 years later to earn my master’s degree in digital photography. I wanted to explore how my positive memories of Fremont and the ideas I had about America compared to present-day reality, and to reexamine the ways in which they had molded me into the person I am today. To be honest, I also wanted to create a documentary of the town to keep as my own personal treasure.
This photographic series combines my memories of past experiences and the presence of current places and relationships.
Coming from Thailand, where new development is constantly changing neighborhoods and the landscape, I was surprised at how much Fremont had stayed the same, and how much it matched my memories from 16 years earlier. Many of its stores and buildings have changed very little. Even the tree I had once photographed still stood, though it was bigger. The neighborhood I lived in looks the same in its architecture and natural environment, although some of the old neighbors had moved away. My high school has relocated to a new building, though, and the old high school building has become a recreation center.
My host parents live in Fremont, in the same house, and they welcomed me warmly and treated me like a member of the family when I was making my photographs, just like before. The comfort we feel with each other is unchanged. I was and am completely at home with them.
My experience in Fremont made me fall in love with America. I know that one town does not represent everything about this country, which has also seen a great deal of change in the years since my time as an exchange student. Yet the constancy of Fremont turned this body of work into a near visualization of my memories. This reinforced, in turn, just how formative that experience had been for me. Though I spent only one year of my life in Fremont, that short time had a disproportionately powerful effect on my personality, and influenced the way I see not only the United States but also the greater world.
My time in Fremont taught me that it’s possible to feel at home in another culture, but also whet my appetite to see more of the world. In sharing my experience in this book, and exploring the relationship between past experience and memory, I want to invite viewers to think about how their own experiences, especially in new and challenging places, have influenced who they are today.