Introduction:

Everyone has a different idea and meaning of what home is.To me home is California; I lived there for 17 years of my life, I associate it with the house I live in, the town I’m from, my childhood friends, and the traditions made by my family.

Compared to most people in the world I grew up with and around a great amount of privilege. I was born in Dallas, Texas but about a year later my parents moved the family back to California because they were happier there and thought it was the best environment to raise me and my brother in, and it turned out to be where I spent all of my childhood up until the day I left for college. Some of the first experiences I remember are from when I lived in Redwood City and attended a public elementary school. As a child I didn’t realize that I was surrounded by a wide range of  people who came from different social classes and were different races than me. There were a lot of middle class families and a lot of low income families, but as a kid I wasn’t aware or concerned with any of those factors. When I was in sixth grade my dad announced that he bought a lot in Menlo Park. My parents had wanted to upgrade our house and move into something bigger as my brother and I started to get older, so over the next few years my parents designed and oversaw the building of the new house. At the end of eighth grade we moved into the new house. I remember the fifteen minute drive from Redwood City to Menlo Park thinking wow I never realized that Redwood City was so average and nowhere near as pretty, clean, or expensive looking as Menlo Park. Soon after the move I started my freshman year at the local high school Menlo-Atherton just a block away from my new home.  Despite Menlo Atherton’s location of being in Atherton California, the number one most expensive zip code in the United States according to Forbes, the school itself was a huge melting pot. M-A consisted of students and families from the top of the social economic ladder coming from Menlo Park, Atherton, and Portola Valley, and students/families from the bottom of the social economic ladder coming from East Palo Alto. Due to the two extremes in culture and class it was almost as though M-A was two different schools in one. Attending Menlo-Atherton gave me exposure to a wide range of people who came from different backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures than me. This exposure allowed me to view and grasp what reality in this world really looks like and all the different kinds of people who make it up.

For this project I chose to focus on one of the most desired places in the US, an area in which so many people wish and dream about living in. I chose to focus on Silicon Valley specifically because it is where I was raised and the place I am most familiar with. For this project I wanted to examine what an ideal/unrealistic home looks like and compare it to what a realistic and affordable home looks like within the area and to the average American family. I wanted to include experiences and details about my life because I think it will help the audience connect my background to the meaning and purpose behind my project.