Hello, readers. My name is Deborah and I am a California native. I was born in Los Angeles and was raised in different neighborhoods of the City, including Korea Town, the Rampart District, Little Armenia, Los Feliz and the San Gabriel Valley. I returned to the City of Los Angeles when I attended college, finally settling down in the coastal city of Santa Monica.

I was surprised to learn of all the animosity Los Angeles transplants had towards my beloved City. I encountered random people who simply hated being here. Acquaintances would lament over the general flakiness of the people, the terrible traffic, the lack of culture, the lack of community, the oppressive cost of living here, or the lack of soul that embodied Los Angeles. The void of this place was “unbearable” to them.

When pressed why they won’t simply leave, I would get responses like “Oh, we’re just here for work,” or “The weather is too perfect.”

This simply wasn’t true to me.

Los Angeles, or should I say, California in general, encompasses more than just the nice weather and the ample professional opportunities. California is the place where people made something out of nothing, where dreams became reality, where micro-cultures thrived, where wealthy philanthropic art patrons amply shared their love for culture to the masses.

This beautiful State also has lots to offer by way of culinary and confectionary greatness, where people fused two cultural staples into one dish. Fresh fruit and veggies? Readily available. Fresh fruits and veggies to pick with your own bare hands? Just an hour’s drive away, but not just the ugly kind of drive that newer urban city landscapes provide. There’s also the scenic kind, with coastal views or rolling hills, mixed with the graffiti-laden rainbow that a city such as Los Angeles welcomes as an expression of urban art.

Everything is within reach here. Everyone is welcome here. How you choose to live life is what becomes your reality. California is the place where people could make something out of themselves in an extraordinary way. Its history, the interactive kind even we can help create and be a part of, is ever changing.

I wanted to cultivate a more positive viewpoint of how I see California. As a Los Angeles native, my goal is to share my love for California by documenting my life experiences here. My personal endeavor for this blog has become that, to appreciate the thriving Los Angeles that I adore in sharing my life adventures through narrative and photos. It has also become my platform for introducing new or reinvented discoveries for my children, also California natives. To grab a sneak peak of what’s to come, feel free to follow me on Instagram. To view my professional work, check out my portfolio.

Thank you for visiting. Enjoy my blog posts.

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