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I grew up in a small town in central California called Reedley. No ever knows where it is, even people who live relatively near it. I usually have to say that I am from Fresno which is the closest city, but if I am out of California, most don’t even know where that is. People are most responsive when I tell them that Reedley is near Yosemite and the Kings Canyon National Park. However, while this is true, it does not accurately paint the picture of my town so I hesitate to say it. Reedley is a place centered around agriculture. Growing up, I often heard it referred to as the “fruit basket of the world.” The majority of our population is immigrant Mexican farm workers, few are middle class, and fewer still are the wealthy people who own the farms. Oddly enough, both the rich kids whose parents own the farms and the extremely poor kids who work on the farms all go to school together. Everything is dry all year round. In the summer, we frequently have weather of over 110 degrees for weeks at a time. It was always strange to me that a place that was so dry could grow so much. I haven’t lived there since I was eighteen and now I am almost twenty-five. I don’t think I will ever move back. I have lived in all four corners of the United States now and even traveled to other countries and I have never been anywhere that created the same connotations - dry grass, taco trucks, the smell of fresh nectarines, ranch style houses, weed ridden fields, hazy mountain views. Most of my high school classmates have never left California and probably never will. Having moved three times in the past year, I’m not sure where my “home” is anymore, but no longer consider it to be where I grew up.