The Gateway to Yosemite

I live in Merced, California, the “Gateway to Yosemite.” To hear it conjures images of scrub brush, Azalea, Scotch Broom, various pine trees  and large oaks, large granite boulders scattered throughout rolling golden hills, rivers and streams all meandering throughout the crevices. And in all your conjurings―you’d be dead wrong. Merced, California is flat, central San Joaquin Valley farmland. The only thing it has in common with the Sierra Nevada Foothills is dirt. 

As in most cases, the worst features of a town line the main highway, in our case Highway 99. When you pass Merced on Highway 99, you’ll see shanty-like structures, dilapidated with collapsed roofs, sparse industrial areas, vacant lots, and feed stores advertising John Deer tractors. There are also rows of old houses in neighborhoods that look run down and…dirty. This is unfortunate. It makes Merced the kind of place people pass through on their way to some other, more appealing destination thinking, or saying aloud, “Who in the world would ever choose to live here?” I know this because I’ve passed through Merced before, on my way to more appealing destinations and thought or said the same thing. If I’d ever taken the time to venture off the highway though, and drive just a little way (in the right direction) into Merced, I would have seen charming early 20th century colonials and craftsman bungalows, all shaded by fully matured trees lining streets with wide sidewalks and verges. A verge is that strip of land between the sidewalk and the street. Only older neighborhoods have them, and in Merced most of the neighborhoods are old. I would have seen that there are two thriving colleges; a community college, and a brand new UC. There are a scattering of lovely, old parks, a recreational lake, and an actual stream running through the center of town. 

Still, admittedly, Merced is not the most appealing place my partner and I could have chosen to live, but it is the place I was offered an attractive teaching position, and most importantly, it’s one of the more affordable places a person can live in California. Believe me, we’ve looked. Two hours away, at the southernmost end of Santa Cruz County, I paid $3000.00 dollars a month for a two bedroom, two bath apartment, with laundry hook-ups. I have the same exact apartment in Merced and pay only $1500.00. But wait…there’s more, we also have a large pool, a workout room and a single car garage.  I’d have paid another thousand dollars a month for amenities like these in Santa Cruz. 

“He must make less money,” you might think. Not so, I’m being paid approximately $15,000.00 more per year. 

After I looked at all the numbers, Merced started to seem more appealing. Still, before leaving Santa Cruz, I had to work my way through some well established concepts I’d developed for what acceptable living conditions should be; underpinning it all was what others would think after they heard we’d moved to Merced. Anne was completely unbothered by the move; an obvious step-down from my perspective. Then again, she grew up in Yuba City, a place not unlike Merced. Anne and I have always lived in beautiful places, or at least near them. From my porch in Watsonville I could smell the ocean air. This enabled me to look past the section eight housing that surrounded my apartment complex. Just knowing I could drive for ten minutes and stand on the beach made me feel more successful. The fact that, in three years I had visited the beach only a dozen times wasn’t as important as knowing it was there. In Nevada City, a proper Sierra Nevada Foothills town, we lived in a forest and had lakes and rivers within minutes of our home. Before that, we lived in North County San Diego. For me, Merced could never compare to these pristine locations. Moving to Merced was mostly about the money, and I started to develop a strong resentment for having been priced out of the beautiful areas of my state. California has become one of the most expensive places to live in the United States, and anywhere within close proximity to beauty requires a significant financial sacrifice. In Santa Cruz, we continually dipped into our savings to make ends meet. In Merced we would be solvent; we would even be able to save money.

After resigning myself to this fate, I tried to romanticize the move to Merced. I’m the kind of person who constantly needs a romantic notion of himself in order to be happy. I saw myself driving up to Big Yosemite Valley every other weekend. Maybe I’ll take up fly fishing, I thought. I’ll become an avid cyclist. Flat areas are good for cycling―at least from my perspective. For me to make this move and feel happy, I had to be able to envision my life as being enhanced by my new environment. 

Our first summer in Merced was cursed by the 2018 Paradise Camp fire. It burned 153,336 acres, and although it was more than two hours north of Merced, it filled the valley with smoke. Big Yosemite Valley was also closed down due to forest fires. The only reason I left our air conditioned apartment was to drive to my air conditioned classroom to work. The sky was hidden the entire summer and Merced glowed orange for a month. It felt like we were living in a post-apocalyptic movie. Everything seemed dirty in Merced and the air was particularly dirty; so much so that I couldn’t listen to a local radio newscast without hearing them report the level of daily air quality. A layer of dirt settled on our cars a day after I’d them washed. Dirt just falls out of the sky in Merced. One of the most thriving businesses to have here is a car wash, evidenced by the fact I pass no less than four of them anywhere I happen to go.  

When winter came the air cleaned up a bit and I started to actually investigate my new surroundings. I was underwhelmed, but school had started and my work distracted me from my environment. Eventually, I did make it up to Yosemite Valley. I also began riding my bicycle more. Anne and I started taking evening walks together through neighborhoods of new houses at the edge of town, listing in the mid-twos. It was winter break and the air was crisp and clear. This really isn’t so bad, I thought; not remembering the long, hot, smoky summer. I learned to be selective about the routes I drove, and the parts of town I visited, thus ignoring the parts of town that reminded me of where I actually lived.  

Now, after living here for three years, what I have discovered, and can tell you about any location you might consider living, is community. There are people everywhere, and wherever they are there is joy, anger, happiness, sorrow, loss, hope, celebration, respect and reverence. People naturally care for one another in Merced, and as a teacher, I find myself smack dab in the middle of all the juicy building blocks of community. Merced is a small town, so wherever I go I tend to see the same faces, and pleasantly, they are smiling most of the time.

I’ve lived in some of the most desirable locations in California and Oregon, but in Merced I am reminded that it’s not so much the topography, weather, or air quality that enhances our quality of life, it’s our relationships, and our sense of belonging. Wherever there are people you will find empathy, compassion, judgement, agreement and discord, but most of all you will find commonality. The people of Merced are among the most delightful and despicable I have known anywhere I’ve lived. More importantly (and honestly), I’m one of them, and I’m sure I can be considered both. I have found my place in Merced, just as I have in every other place I’ve ever called home. I won’t lie, it was hard for me to move here after living in Santa Cruz, but it was a case of conflicting images, a case of ego (the ego of a white man who’s lived his entire life with privilege). I was leaving a place people visit for their annual vacation, to live in a place people pass through as quickly as possible on their way to Ansel Adams country. My final decision rested on my faith in humanity (and affordability). I trusted in the fact that no matter where I chose to live, I would find my people, the people who identify with my ideals, the people I support, and who in turn support me. And I have. Admittedly, we are a minority. Merced is a red county in the middle of a blue state, and I see more bumper stickers supporting conservative views than I feel comfortable with, but even my conservative neighbors have been friendly and welcoming (for the most part). 

There is a lot of poverty in Merced. There are a lot of undocumented workers, and at my school we serve these families. Our fields would not survive without their labor, and still a majority of Mercedians seem to support an administration who would see them all sent back to their country of origin, including children who have never known another home. I no longer avoid these pockets of poverty, and feel embarrassed to say I ever did. Many of my students live and struggle in them. It’s no surprise there are a lot of gangs in Merced, and gang violence, but this is a socio-economic phenomenon that can be found in any area of California. More importantly, gang or no gang, these are just people worthy of love and belonging, people who struggle, feel joy and justifiable anger. So many of Merced’s inhabitants are underserved and go unseen. The school-to-prison pipeline is strong in Merced, and instilling children with a sense of hope and opportunity is a daily battle at my school. Drug use is high, and human trafficking occurs frequently. It’s no wonder so many of our youth call this town Merdead, and see their only way out, their only avenue to a better life, the military―even in the presence of two colleges.

Now when people ask me what it’s like to live in Merced, I tell them it’s wonderful (unless they ask me in the middle of summer). I don’t see the dilapidation as ugly anymore; there is actually a beauty in it. Recently I’ve started visiting students at their homes. In the middle of this Covid-19 pandemic, I am running an after school Guitar Club over Zoom. Shortly after I started working at my school I discovered a closet full of guitars. They had been neglected and were in poor condition, but I restored them, and now loan them out to students who want to learn but can’t afford an instrument. When I deliver a guitar to a student I’ve only known at school, and discover the conditions in which they live, I feel a pang in my chest. It’s the same pang I feel when I learn how many of my students are homeless, unaccompanied homeless, or displaced. It is an empathetic pang, and I try not to let my students see it in my face. As a teacher, living in Merced has strengthened my sense of service, and I’m starting to think my move here may have been for some higher purpose. This is a romantic notion I can live with. Rather than viewing the world only in terms of what it can offer me, I now focus on what I have to offer. Our physical surroundings, our proximity to a beach, or our zip code does not determine our worth. So much of what we see nowadays is the appearance of wealth and success. Behind it is the quiet desperation of a person living beyond his or her means. This was me before I moved to Merced. When I look back at that person I smile and think, knucklehead! Another important lesson learned; hopefully I will remember it during the summer months. In any case, happily, Merced is now home.