Where I was from
2021-09-28
Earlier this year, I moved back to California. I am a Californian by marriage and a somewhat reluctant one at that. The muted seasons and even the beautiful beaches, which I sometimes enjoy, aren’t really my thing. And yet this is where life has taken me again.
In an effort to make the best of it, I resolved that if I’m going to live in this state, I’m going to appreciate it, and I kicked off a California reading tour.
The latest book in my survey is Where I was from, a memoir by Joan Didion. I’m still at the beginning of my California reading journey, but so far this would be the first book I suggest anyone read if they want to understand the state.
Where I was from is about the author’s relationship with California, how her understanding of California changed as she grew up, how the California of her youth faded away, and her relationship with her parents as they grow old and ultimately pass away. It’s exceptionally well written. It weaves the author’s family history into notable events from California history and both of these into the human experience of leaving behind a version of a place, of yourself, and of those you love you as you age.
Where I was from isn’t primarily a history book. Perhaps because of this, it has unlocked California for me in a new way, like how meeting a friend’s parents for the first time helps explain who they are.
It’s common to talk about California’s boom/bust cycles because of the gold rush, but it’s also apt. After all, this is a state that’s population has increased by more than 50% in a decade 5 times since 18501. Didion’s book spends time on less famous booms: the aerospace industry after the Second World War and the development boom of the 1960-80s when the great ranches of California were broken up and developed into communities.
The aerospace boom is told through the perspective of Lakewood, California, a suburb that grew up next to the McDonnell-Douglas plant, and then struggles with its identity as that industry moves away in the waning days of the Cold War.
The development boom is told through the stories of the heirs of the Irvine and Hollister estates, great California ranches passed down intact from Spanish and Mexican land grants. These heirs proceed to break up these great ranches to make suburbs and shopping malls, along with a tidy fortune.
For Didion, the settlers that rushed West during the gold rush, the families of Lakewood and the heirs of the great ranches all have a common Californian experience: Each generation rushes headlong to make California into their version of paradise. Some make it and prosper and others are left behind. In in doing so, they change California. In the end, those who profited most from the changes look back and wonder what they’ve lost in the process2.
Didion’s Californians are not fearless and self sufficient pioneers, but real people terrified of getting caught in the mountains before the weather turns. They benefit greatly from the investments of the Federal Government, be those investments railroads, aqueducts, or jet planes. Their experience of striving to change the world and then having to live with the consequences is a human one. If there is something uniquely Californian, it is the speed and the scale with which those changes take shape.
The best example I have of how this book has changed how I view California is Cannery Row in Monterey. Today, Cannery Row is a tourist trap. A couple of the old canning operation buildings are preserved but no actual fishing or canning continues. When I had visited it in the past, all I saw where the tschotskes and doodads. But now I see it differently: a monument to a past generation of Californians who strived to build a new world and succeeded, only to have that way of life slowly become irrelevant and fade away3.
Notes
I didn't have anywhere to put this, but I especially appreciated the Didion's mother's observation that California had become "all San Jose."
1: California’s growth is really stunning. The first decade where it didn’t grow more than 20% was 1980.
2: The addendum to this book set south of Market street in San Francisco about the tech industry almost writes itself. I also appreciated the author's observation that it is especially Californian to feel that anyone who shows up after you is altering the state beyond repair.
3: In a typically Californian way, just up the street from Cannery Row, an industry that literally fished itself out of existence, is the Monterey acquarium, with emphasizes the importance of ocean conservation.