Susan Straight
Susan Straight was born in Riverside, where she still lives. Her latest novel is "Between Heaven and Here." She teaches at UCRiverside and works with photographer Douglas McCulloh to document the Inland Empire.
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Something many Americans believe about Southern California is that people here came from somewhere else. In Riverside, every day I see people I've known since kindergarten, and every time I go to a North High game, it's like a family reunion.
None of this would be in this long desert valley without two essentials brought from other places years ago, or months ago, or yesterday: water and workers.
Imagine it is late August, and 120 degrees, and you have to climb the hundred feet of ladder to cut each heavy bunch of dates with a knife fashioned out of steel and lower the bunch on a hook to a man waiting at the bottom. Now imagine that you have t...
The nighttime security officer arrives when the sun sets and the Santa Ana River is lit by floodlights at the construction site. Here in March of 1774, a party formed by Juan Bautista de Anza to form a trading route in New California crossed the river ...
A lovely irony that many of us here in Southern California might have forgotten - the California Dream, the envy of the rest of the nation with our endless run and outdoor living, requires shade.