Personal Narrative: Moving Away From The San Luis Valley

Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley was an experience like no other. The RGV is full of Tex-Mex, laughs, and the most random things you can think of. Despite all its quirks it’s a beautiful place to live in, and it’s home to me.

I was born in Modesto ,CA on August 17, 2003 in Modesto hospital . I lived in Atwater ,CA most of my life ,but then I moved to Merced this year. Places that I have visited that feel like home is Watsonville and Santa Cruz. I have been in the same school for 8 years . Also, I have had a separate year in preschool. When I was in preschool I went to a school near Winton ,CA. During my magical 8 years I stayed in Bellevue since kindergarden through 8th grade.

Hello, reading over your discussion about growing up in Inglewood California brings to mind my African American co-worker who talks about living in Compton. She tells us often how growing up in that area you had to carry either a gun or a knife and be on guard whenever you go anywhere. She is a very dear friend of mine and she reminds me she is a changed person from the way she used to be. Her mother still lives in California but in a better neighborhood now but she is planning a trip to see her mother. My friend often tells me years ago she and I would have never gotten along because she had so much anger inside her. I am glad my friend did get out of that neighborhood alive and somehow found in her heart to not keep anger inside.

It was April of 1999. My family was at home. Children were running outside. The asphalt was burning. Cars rolled up to the entrance of the apartments and BANG. I grew up in Stockton, California. Surprisingly, as a minority, I wasn’t really a minority. There were, in fact, a large and diverse population of Asian-Americans. But, Stockton is not the ideal place to live. It was hot and dry, almost to the point of a drought. Stockton was also ranked as the one of the top 5 most dangerous cities in California. So, having a nice and safe family is kind of difficult. Eventually, my family decided to move to Crescent City, California when my dad retired. It was a world of difference. There were trees, plentiful water, and a nice cool temperature. This

Every summer I look forward to sitting on a large, warm cabana under the Texas sun. My feet buried in the sand as I welcome the lukewarm waves against my legs. Being a beach bum in South Padre Island, Texas is a great way to bring on the summer. This island isn’t short of attractions, from the beautiful ocean, to tasty restaurants, to fireworks over the ocean you will never get bored on your vacation! Last summer I was joined by a few of my closest friends. We made so many memories as we all went parasailing for the first time. Our relationship grew stronger as we were able to share a new experience together. Spending a few weeks in South Padre Island with family and close friends is a great way to make memories that will last a lifetime.

San Luis, Colorado is the oldest town in Colorado. The Rio Culebra winds through the valley, surrounded by majestic mountains. It is one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen. My family along with many others have been here for generations. The beauty of the land is only accentuated by the beauty of our tight-knit families and culture. To counteract of all the physical and cultural beauty, there is social and economic strife everywhere around me. I live in the poorest county in Colorado and being impoverished is a challenge my community faces because of a lack of education and job deficit. As I have delved into community and family history, I have better understanding that the fact the that while many things like our support and love for family and culture have remain unchanged and untainted, so has the fact that our community struggles

I was nine years old when I moved to California from Japan, all the way across the world. Moving to California was quite possibly the weirdest experience that has happened to me as a child. Trying to move from a place that I pretty much spent my life in than literally going across the world without knowing anything about it was very foreign to me, however my parents used to live in california for about one or two decades.

I was born on October 23rd, 1999 very early in the morning the very first person to carry me was my dad. When I two years old me and my mom moved to Las Vegas, and lived there for about 6 years then soon move back to California. That was in early the early 2000’s when that happened . Few years past by then my sister was born June 23rd, 2005. I was staying with my cousin at the time until she was born then I went to see my sister on the day she was born.

When I was about 11 years old I moved to Canton Michigan from Las Vegas Nevada. It was a dramatic change in my life. Not only is it quite a distance from Nevada. But there was also a different outcome that were made from the people to the weather and not being able to see my dad anymore.

I felt that my parents dragged me to a place where I didn’t want to be. The three of us moved to NYC, and the first three months we were all compacted into one single bedroom, trying to start a new life. It was a drastic change from the way we lived back in Colombia, each having their own separate bedroom.

In 1978, when I was 14, my family moved from Phoenix, AZ to Cerritos, CA; a small city in the heart of the greater Los Angeles area. Phoenix was mainly White, Barry Goldwater conservatives trying their best to hold onto 1950’s Americana, but Los Angeles in the late 1970s was different; it was alive, vibrating to frequencies of the differing cultures that called the L.A. basin home. Looking back it still fills me with excitement, but truth be told I was scared to death. When I first arrived I had no friends, no experience to prepare me for the full on culture shock I found myself facing, nor any thought of how special that area would be to me. No other place than Southern California could have provided a better backdrop to develop the foundation

In the Santa Clara Valley, in the years following the war, comparatively very few homes were built in the ways discussed so far in this chapter. The overwhelming majority were built in large tracts numbering from 50 to 200 homes or more. I will tell you how this mass-produced housing came into being in Chapter 7, but for now will continue with some additional GI stories.

The first time I saw you, your smile mesmerized me and your laugh practically incapacitate my organism. Your mysterious eyes so profound that no conceivable mean to decipher the schema that your emotion unveil. The thought of you laughing right now can moisten the Mojave Desert; the echo of your voice is a manifestation equivalent to billions of neurotransmitters flushing into my hypothalamus at the speed of light. It enrages all the serotonin within my anatomy that I didn't know has existed. Now you know. And with silence, you have stolen my heart and every endogenous elements in my body. The thought of you has organically saturate the dopamine which will soon speed to my nuclei--everlastingly in my raphe core. The thought of you like testosterone

I was thinking about an item in my life that held great meaning, an object that was full of nostalgia, and at first, I thought of my acoustic guitar, but I realized that my blanket was the right topic to write about. It seems strange that something so simple could be so important, but it holds many memories of my childhood, which felt like a sturdy subject for this write-up. My blanket has a calming aroma that smells of flowers and fresh air, and that scent is what reminds me of the many things I have been through. For example, there were many times when I struggled with challenges in my life I would comfort myself by wrapping it around me.

Diana and I met in June 2011, when we were both employed at Nathans Famous in Oceanside, NY. At the beginning, we were simple coworkers. After a while, we started taking long summer walks in Oceanside and Long Beach, usually after our evening shift was over. In August 2011, Diana and I had our first date, at a restaurant in Long Beach.