I grew up in the San Joaquin (or Central) Valley in California. It’s incredibly rural and feels like you have dropped a Southern or Midwestern state in the middle of SoCal, the Bay area, the ocean, and some ridiculously tall mountains. 

I learned to drive on all the back roads connecting the rural towns, mostly with my grandma. She would sit in the passenger seat, not allowing the radio to be on because it was a distraction, and then tell me not to drive above 40 miles an hour on the 55-mile-an-hour roads. She told me stories about her life, which I loved to listen to.

My grandma told me about the time she lived in Allensworth in the 1960s and how local authorities planned to demolish the town because of arsenic in the water in 1966. She told me Allensworth was founded at the turn of the century by a Black man for Black people.

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