Over my past year at CAL I’ve come to assimilate that my reality here is not the same as it is in my hometown Inglewood, California. To allow for some context, Inglewood is predominately P.O.C, there are literally brown faces left and right. My high school was 98% Latino; that being so, my graduating class consisted of 128 Latinos. The places that I frequented on the daily basis also consisted of people that looked like me—brown skin, dark hair, and Spanish speaking. So to say, that whenever I brought outsiders into my neighborhood they would call it “little Mexico”. Although, an insulting comment as first, I’ve learned to comprehend what they intend to communicate with the parallelism. It’s a sensibility that is unique to my hometown, from the local carnicerias, fruterias, and paleteros to the horses casually cruising down the street, the roosters that don’t fail to cockatoo at sunrise, and the neighboring children playing…show more content… There is definitely no site of horses or children playing street soccer, but there is a lot of ethnic diversity that I have learned to appreciate. However, I do become homesick quiet often so I try to venture out and find spaces that remind me of home. One of these spaces has been Mission district in San Francisco where the term Latino is literally visible everywhere. It is a space that caters to the Latino community in which every block holds space for businesses with names such as “Latin Bridal”, “Clinica Latina”, “Milagros de Mexico”, etc. Every visit that I make to the Mission District I make a quick stop at Botanica Yoruba, which is a store that has products used for Santeria. Upon entering it reminds me so much of home because incenses fill the air, it houses saints of which are familiar to me, and there are herbs that I, too, find in my home. There is something about this place that brings me warmth and I appreciate it so much. For this reason, I decide to conduct my ethnography
