Minerva Vernon:  

For now, I will only say that once upon a time, there was a small town called Loomis. It straddled the I80 Fwy a few minutes north of a city called Sacramento, in a state called California. It was a land of ponds and creeks, agriculture and lumber mills. The people were generally friendly, and a hub of town was at the local Rexal Pharmacy owned by a kind Japanese man named Doc, who was always smoking a cigar and telling jokes. In this small town there was a house on Callison St., where a hardworking Mexican immigrant brought his family to live. The fifth child of this family of six children was a girl with a Roman name of Minerva, who grew up in this town until she was 16. It became her lifelong personal challenge to learn to decipher how to manage a dual heritage, Mexican and American, and this small town became, in large part, her ever cyclical reference point for that challenge. Minerva moved away to lands not so far, and then some very far. Long story short, Minerva took on singing in R&B bands for a little bit, worked for the state, got married and raised a daughter, and then separated from her husband, started courses for court interpretation, and became an activist of sorts for causes inspired by her life's experiences and those of others, good, wrong and unjust. Throughout these phases in her life, she never forgot her childhood memories of that little town and the friendships she once enjoyed at her schools and neighborho...Expand for more