It’s OK to be from California

I once swore to myself I would never live in Idaho.

Why? Why would a 10-year-old child make that oath? Especially when Idaho is such an amazing place, full of beauty, nature, and gorgeous land? Some of the nicest people I know are from Idaho, I love visiting in the stores with other customers and swapping stories about our day. Even a recent visit to the urgent care became a social event for me, I chatted with a couple of the gentleman there and swapped head injury stories. I love Idaho. So why would I tell my parents I would never live here?

When I was a 10-year-old child, I was mocked and made fun of because I had been born in the state of California.

And I mean nasty, nasty comments about how I was stupid, how I could never be a “farm girl” because I came from California, that obviously I was dumb and how dare my parents move us up to the Mt. Spokane area and chose to move to Washington instead of Idaho, because Idaho was so much better than Washington but it’s probably better I didn’t come to Idaho, because Idaho didn’t want ex-Californians anyway.

I would like to point out that where I heard most of these comments was at a church meetup that several of the small churches in Washington and Idaho did so more families could get to know each other.

These comments tore me up as a kid, to the point of tears of shame because I wasn’t a true farm girl because oh, the horror, I had been born in California. What a terrible thing! I was a terrible person, because I was born in California! I wasn’t ever going to be a farm girl and get to be a country girl like my dream. No matter how hard I tried to “fit in” that label “ex-Californian” followed me everywhere I went, and I was mocked, made fun of and teased by other kids. Adults would give me a snooty look and say, “Oh, your family is from California?”

To be fair, this happened where we moved to in the Mt. Spokane area as well, but I experienced most of this whenever we went to Idaho for an event or to hang out with friends. I told my parents I would never, ever live in Idaho because everyone is mean there and hated me. Now as an adult I know that isn’t the case, but as a very vulnerable kid and teenager I truly felt that way. Of course, ironically, I married a man who lived in Athol, Idaho, so guess who moved to Idaho?

Does any of this sound familiar to you folks?

I would like to now mention that my family is originally from Idaho. 1800s homesteaders from Boundary County who lived here until the 1900s when my great grandma got married and moved to Washington. I have a lot more Idaho history in me than any of those kids who belittled me as a child, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if my family was originally from here or were some of the original homesteaders. That doesn’t make me more qualified to live here, and why should it?

Adults, how you talk about people moving here is how your kids are going to talk and treat other kids. I do understand what you are going through and how sad it is to see the land you grew up on being developed. Where I lived on the prairies right below Mt. Spokane and where I spent all summer riding my horse is now divided into new homes and plots. It hurts my heart to see my prairie disappearing, but you know what? I don’t blame the people who want to move there. Of course they want to move there, it’s beautiful and peaceful and Mt. Spokane looming over the prairie during a gorgeous sunset is beyond anything I can describe. I don’t blame the people. I don’t blame the farmers who are too old to maintain their farms. I don’t even blame the construction workers, but I would like to point out that the place I see the most “Idaho is Full, Go Home” stickers are on construction vehicles on construction sites and the same people who have those stickers are the ones building houses that any local person can’t afford.

I’m sharing this because my heart grieves when I meet people at the park and I am chatting with them, and when I recognize they don’t seem familiar with the area and ask where they’re from, they won’t answer me. “I’m from south of here.”

“Oh, south Idaho?”

“No …”

And then I know. They’re from California. The place that is so “evil and terrible” and if you’re from there than you are a terrible person trying to change Idaho and make it California.

So I smile and say, “Ah, you’re from California. Welcome to Idaho, it’s OK to want to leave there because you want to live somewhere better.”

And they look so relieved and thank me, thanking me for not being angry with them for wanting something better.

I have lived in the area most of my life, around Mt. Spokane on both the Washington and Idaho side. I can speak the lingo around here, I know the best huckleberry patches, I have hiked and explored many places that only people native to here would know about. I can make myself sound like a total native, and I am good at it, too. But I don’t want to hide anymore. I don’t want to feel like I am a terrible person because I was born in California. I am not a bad person because I couldn’t control where I was born.

Treat others the way you want to be treated. Parents I really want to emphasize this, what you say your kids will say. What you do your kids will do. I know too many young kids in school right now who feel like they have to trash talk where they were born because their schoolmates ridicule them for being from California or Oregon or the West Side, etc. Like really, do they have control of where we were born or where our parents lived or where we move?

Don’t be like the Californians in the 1930s, who called the Arkansas immigrants white trash and shunned them for being from another state. Who blamed them for the Depression and took advantage of them. That is racism, but in a different form than what we are used to — racism against people from a different state than you.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about the constant development, I am concerned too. I am a farmer by trade and that’s what I do for work, how can I not be concerned? But never blame families for wanting something better for their kids. Never be angry with people who want a better life. If you ever have to move, I hope you’re never, ever treated like a Californian. I would never wish that experience on anyone.

To all you out of state “immigrants” to the area, welcome. It’s not your fault that change happens, you did not subdivide the farmland, you did not build all the houses here. We know you just want something better, and that’s OK. And why don’t all of us stop pointing fingers at each other and work together to solve the problem? I don’t know how we can change things so we’re not subdividing all of the farmland, but I certainly know yelling at someone who didn’t even build the house they’re moving into won’t help. Let’s be adults, folks. Let’s model to our children that we can be sad about the change we’re experiencing but that’s OK, because we’re going to try to do something about it instead of whine about it.

I am doing exactly that now, by writing this. I am not going to pretend I was born here anymore so I don’t have to deal with being judged. I can’t control where I was born, but I am happy I live here and I won’t be ashamed that I am not a native. And that’s OK.

So if any of you folks would like to join me one of these upcoming summer days to pick some peaches, call me. I know where the best peaches you’ve ever tasted are grown!

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Emily Sinclair is a resident of Post Falls.