INTER STATE

A native Californian of Mexican descent mourns the ways in which his home state has been rendered inaccessible and unrecognizable to those who remain.

A self-described “Mexi-Rican,” essayist and playwright Vadi begins his journey by attempting to retrace his grandfather’s life as a migrant worker in Southern California, uncovering a history he is not sure his grandfather ever wanted him to know. The author then takes readers to the Bay Area, introducing us to Suzy’s, a San Francisco bar where he has fond memories of playing the jukebox every Monday after work. Vadi describes meeting friends on Market Street, avoiding arrest at a 2009 Oakland protest against the murder of a detained young Black man named Oscar Grant, skateboarding at a park colloquially known as “Hubba Hideout,” and encountering racism at a performance of the Nutcracker. The narrative ultimately returns to Southern California, and the author introduces his mother and father, who still live in Pomona, where the author grew up. Regardless of setting, every essay in this sharp collection addresses a different aspect of California’s gentrification, but the thread that holds the pieces together is Vadi’s own confusion, anger, and bitterness at watching the state that he knows and loves fade away before his eyes, providing a modern rejoinder to Richard Rodriguez’s kindred memoir Brown. At a line level, the book is outstanding, filled with long, breathless sentences, innovative syntax, and precise diction. Vadi’s talent shines in his descriptions of characters like his beloved but abused father or when he is raging against economic and social injustices, which are especially acute for “the broad swath of citizens and undocumented workers alike at the bottom of the wage-for-existence economic hierarchy.” Unfortunately, these characters, whom the narrator has lovingly shaped, disappear for pages at a time, resulting in sections bogged down by detail and a lack of momentum.

A stunningly written, unevenly paced series of essays about California.