If you know me, then you probably know I’m from “the foothills”, a broad term referring to the region of Eastern California that’s not quite the Sierras, but not quite the Central Valley either. When people ask me where I’m from, I usually say I’m between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, which is close enough to the truth. In actuality, I grew up in a small town called Sutter Creek. We’re roughly 2,000 people strong, the remnants of a gold mining town from the mid 1800s. But when I think of where I come from, I don’t really want to say Sutter Creek, because that doesn’t quite feel like the truth. My Safeway is in Martell, the next town over, and the DMV and movie theater are both in Jackson, two towns over from me. When I go home for the weekend, I drive up into the mountains to go to Lake Tabeaud and Silver Lake, both a good ways from my tiny hometown. Thus, a lot of us from this area don’t talk about our towns specifically, but rather refer to it all collectively as “the county”, or Amador County, or my personal favorite—the AC.
Because of this, coming to Berkeley was a huge transition for me. The university alone outnumbers the entirety of my county by a few thousand people. I was used to having to drive everywhere back home, and the only public transportation I knew came from my two years of taking the school bus during 7th and 8th grade. Fun back home consisted of driving the “backroads” and going to Safeway late at night since it’s one of the only places that stays open. Arriving at Berkeley my freshman year, especially mid-pandemic, was a huge shock.
I spent a lot of my first year feeling frustrated that it was hard to find other people from small areas like me. It seemed like everyone I met was from the Bay or Los Angeles, and I found myself missing the familiarity of home. What’s more, it felt stifling to be in the city. It’s funny to look back on now, because while Berkeley is urban, it’s certainly not a big city by any standards. But at the time, I found myself wishing I was surrounded by scenery more like what I was used to back home. My first year, I went up to the UC Botanical Gardens eight times just as a way to get outdoors more. I remember calling my mom and complaining that it’d been too long since I’d seen a cow, as I was so used to hearing them from my bedroom window back home. And it was unnerving at first how I couldn’t hear frogs and crickets at night from my dorm room.
Returning to Berkeley for my sophomore year, I was both excited and apprehensive; I’d so enjoyed my break and the time which I’d been able to spend back home. But coming back for my second year, I made a conscious effort to put myself out there much more. I was already out of my comfort zone just by being here, so why not go all the way? I decided that my sophomore year was a bit of a do-over for me, and, like so many incoming freshmen and transfer students, I began joining different clubs and organizations on campus in the hopes of finding a community here. I nailed it on my second go-around and thankfully did find the community here that I’d been looking for, and that in itself felt like home. I didn’t need to find my home in a group of people also from rural areas, but rather in kind people whose company I value.
But I also realized that it’s okay to still miss home sometimes. My sophomore year I came back to Berkeley with a car, and that changed everything for me. It was suddenly so much easier for me to escape from the city and get outside more in the Bay Area (and yes, sometimes go back to the county on weekends too). So—foothills, Sutter Creek, Amador County—no matter what you call it, that’s home to me. But Berkeley’s also home now. I might always associate home with a smaller way of living like I grew up with, but being at Berkeley has taught me that home is something which can be created wherever you are.