Have you lived in or visited Kern County, California? Tell us about it!
Wasco
June 2018 —My hometown is Wasco, California in the 1990’s. It’s a one stop light town on a major highway in California. It is a farming community in the agricultural Central Valley with many illegal immigrants from Mexico. As a non-immigrant white student, it was very difficult being a minority in school. I was bullied for being white and called “bruja” which means “witch” in Spanish because I have green eyes. They refused to call me by my given name and instead made up a Spanish sounding name in its place as a nickname. Oftentimes, I didn’t understand conversations because they were mostly spoken in Spanish.
Bakersfield
May 2018 — I’m 28 years old and have lived in Bakersfield my whole life. I like living in this city because it is a large city, but it really has a small-town feel. Everybody-knows-everybody type of town. If you travel west 2 hours you will hit the beach, travel north a few hours and hike national forests, Travel south a few hours and you’ll find amusement parks (Disneyland!), travel east and you can explore the desert. There is so much to do within a few hours drive from home. That fact makes weekend getaways totally doable for a working-class family. The only complaints I have is that the air quality is horrid because we live in a valley where the air does not flow out easily, its always hot and we do not really get a clear 4-seasons. Its mostly summer with a short rainy season. However, after a good rain storm we can see the mountains from every direction. Since I have lived here there has been a lot of expansion and road development. There are a few freeways being expanded which is going to make the commute through Bakersfield a lot easier. I imagine the improvements will bring more travelers through our town.
Bakersfield
May 2018– Bakersfield California is in Central California in the county of Kern. Bakersfield is in between Fresno (north) and Los Angeles (south). There are mountain ranges all around in every direction therefore; we live below sea level. The climate is extremely hot in the summer and that is about 8 months out of the year. There are only 2 seasons. Summer and Winter. Average rainfall is about 4″ a year so it is extremely dry most of the time. Air quality is 2nd worst in the nation. Bakersfield has grown 300% in the last 20 years due to lower housing cost in comparison to Los Angeles or any of the coastal towns. There are a large number of people who commute for work. The nice thing about Bakersfield is the location and the small town feeling. The 2010 census reported a population of close to one half million people with 53% white, 30% Hispanic and 8% Black with the remaining a mixture of all other races. With the growth considered, we still have a large community of growers and farmland. I have lived here for 35 years, raised my children and now have a very big extended family here. We are your average typical American family.
Bakersfield
February 2018 — mid-70’s through mid-90’s, Bakersfield was a great town. It was a “big small town”. There were a couple hundred thousand people but it still felt like everyone knew each other. Definitely a working town: mostly ag, oil, and service industries. It was the landing place for a LOT of okies in the thirties and forties so it definitely had more in common culturally with Oklahoma and Texas than with the rest of California. “Redneck” working class values and small town pride and communalism seem out of place in California, but it’s what the place was. Everyone worked hard, looked out for each other, and took pride in maintaining their property and providing for their families. And despite the reputation of small towns, race was not an issue. There was not much economic inequality (nearly everyone was working class) so the races intermingled freely and knew each other well. Some tension, but very different than so cal (where I now live), where there’s a lot of self-righteous yammering about diversity and inclusion but class stratification is very strictly enforced. Bakersfield is a very different place now, though. The population has nearly tripled since my childhood and it has degenerated into just another cookie cutter California suburb. Miss the old days.