Quote Originally Posted by channlluv View Post
Here's how I knew I'd come to think of San Diego as home. True story:

I remember walking through the Orlando airport one time, going to our departing flight for San Diego, and I was feeling edgy, although I didn't really know why. The people around me seemed nice enough -- lots of families doing the Disney thing, t-shirts and stuffed Mickeys and all. All very normal, blonde-haired, blue-eyed people. Lots and lots of them. I thought maybe they were a family reunion or something. And they were getting on my flight. The more they chattered around me, the edgier I got, only I didn't recognize it at the time.

We get on the plane and take our seats, the blonde family gets on behind my daughter and me -- all of them, and I hear them talking about getting home to Houston, our layover. So they're Texans. Okay. And then behind them, in this sea of blondeness, a young Filipino woman gets on board. She's alone, and as soon as I see her face, I relax. One word flashes in my mind: Home.

She looked like home. All those white people who looked mostly like me were making me nervous with their chatter and just the vibe they put out, but this young Filipino woman calmed me down.

I should point out that I live in an area of San Diego called, sometimes derisively, Manilla Mesa. I love my neighborhood. It's a nice place to live. We've been in this house for over fifteen years and it's the longest I've ever lived anywhere.

Roxy
Roxy, I grew up in Newark, NJ and adjoining towns there (we moved a lot)
I left NJ when I was 18 and moved to Idaho, where I had horses, goats, chickens, got to run around in the mountains in an old VW, but never ever fit in to that vanilla population.

We moved to Seattle in hopes of getting great jobs and saving money, then we were going to move back to Idaho... It never happened. We put down roots in Seattle. Living in the multi-colored community is where I feel comfortable, just like you in Manilla Mesa.

Where I live used to be called Garlic Gulch, because it was populated by Italians. Sadly, they are all gone, but in their place we have an incredible amount of diversity and culture. on my own little 1 block dead end we have people from every corner of the globe. My good neighbors.