Hometown Culture

I’m not much of traveler, and I’m still a resident of my hometown.

But one thing I’ve always felt was that my hometown has always been rich with Culture and History.

I live in Salinas, CA where the agriculture is one of California’s richest farming towns. We have fields galore with a strong Mexican culture from families who settled here to work in the fields, and now some own their own patch of land.

My mother and father were both born and raised here as well with their 12 siblings, during a time of prejudices where my father couldn’t take a girl to a dance because he was dark and she was light. Our town today is so diverse I couldn’t imagine how it was years ago.

Come every July, the town fills for four days with cowboy culture for the California Rodeo. With parades, chili cook-offs, competitions, and cowboy poetry.

And if you are updated to in your literary history, you’ll know Salinas is the birthplace of Nobel prize laureate, John Steinbeck. His novel East of Eden was primarily set in the Salinas Valley. (My mother’s friend is actually the girl in the field in the opening of the film as the train passes by.) Steinbeck’s childhood Victorian home has been restored and we also have a wonderful Steinbeck Center filled with memorabilia such as the notes he actually wrote with his own hand.

Salinas is far from perfect, especially with its high cost of living and the tension of gang violence, but it’s my hometown with so much history intertwined with my own memories and experiences.

One day we may leave, but it’s hard to imagine living anywhere else.

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