Cali Oregonian
Calioregonian: Born in Oregon, Raised in California
I guess you can say I’m a Calioregonian. Born in Oregon. Raised in California. Grown everywhere in between.
I came into the world with Oregon rain in my lungs — quiet, gray, stubborn. But California raised my voice. California taught me to talk back to the sun.
Oregon gave me roots.
Pine trees and overcast skies. The understanding that things grow slow and deep. Oregon is where you learn to be comfortable with quiet. Where you watch the clouds for hours and nobody calls it wasting time. It’s where I learned that strength doesn’t have to be loud. Sometimes it’s just staying green through the winter.
California gave me wings.
California is heat on the pavement and car stereos shaking your bones. It’s Pittsburg, Concord, Walnut Creek — places that teach you to scan a room when you walk in and still hold your head up. California doesn’t let you hide. It demands you decide who you are, because if you don’t, the block will decide for you.
So I became both. Soft and steel. Ferns and freeways. I’m different because I had to be.
California taught me to stand taller. Not because I wasn’t scared — I was. But in California, you learn that shrinking doesn’t keep you safe. It just makes you easier to overlook. So I stood. In classrooms where I was the only one who looked like me. In courtrooms where I had to fight for my own life. In apartments I earned after losing everything. I stood.
Oregon taught me to embrace my imperfections. The rain doesn’t apologize for falling. The trees don’t smooth their bark. I stopped straightening what God gave me. I wear my own natural hair now — the curls, the gray coming in, the history. California made me tough. Oregon made me true.
Being a Calioregonian is…
It’s knowing how to code-switch between Redwoods and BART trains.
It’s having a heart that beats in traffic and calms down at the sight of Mt. Hood.
It’s surviving the ghetto mindset and the scarcity, then choosing to water myself anyway.
It’s crying in the rain and dancing in the sun, sometimes on the same day.
It’s understanding that “home” isn’t a place. It’s the way you carry both states in your body.
I’m not from here or there. I’m from the hyphen. From the drive up I-5 where the landscape changes but I don’t. From the tension of being too West Coast for Oregon and too quiet for California, until I realized that was the gift.
I’m different. And I finally like it.
Because being a Calioregonian means I got Oregon’s roots and California’s reach. I got the patience to grow and the audacity to bloom. I got the rain that taught me to endure and the sun that taught me to shine anyway.
I was born in Oregon. I was raised in California.
I learned to be strong, stand taller, and embrace my imperfections.
I wear my own natural hair now. And my own natural life.
I’m a Calioregonian.
And I wouldn’t trade the hyphen for the world.
