First published 2005
Maya walks through the streets she thought she knew, but Oakland keeps changing around her. The corner store where she bought candy as a child now sells artisanal coffee. Her neighbors speak different languages than they did five years ago. The house she grew up in costs three times what her parents paid for it. Maya works as a community organizer, trying to bridge the gaps between longtime residents and newcomers, but the city transforms faster than relationships can form. She attends city council meetings where angry voices clash over development projects. She mediates between a Salvadoran family facing eviction and their new landlord. She watches her own family scatter to cheaper neighborhoods as rents climb. Maya must decide whether to fight for the Oakland she remembers or embrace the one emerging around her. The choice will determine not just where she lives, but who she becomes.
Genres: family-life, contemporary, social-issues, urban
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Oakland
Period: 21st-century
298 pages · Unknown Binding · Mailman Press