What Home Means to Me
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
Today's essay in our Home series comes from Francisco Jiménez, longtime SVL Executive Cultura Ambassador and author of The Circuit, the acclaimed memoir of his childhood as a migrant farmworker, read in classrooms across the country for over two decades. A professor emeritus at Santa Clara University, Francisco has been part of the SVL comunidad for years, and his reflection on home carries the weight of a life spent writing his way back to it.
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When I think about what home means to me, I realize that home is much more than a physical place. My understanding of home has been shaped by my childhood as a migrant farmworker, by my family's search for stability, and by my later reflections on those experiences.
I believe home has three essential dimensions: being and identity, place, and community. Home begins with who we are, our physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual selves. It is also the place where we live, the space that provides security, familiarity, and a sense of belonging. And it extends beyond our immediate surroundings to the many communities of which we are a part.
For my father, home was Mexico, the land of his birth. Although he lived and worked in the United States, he never felt completely at home here. He dreamed of working, saving money, and eventually returning to Mexico with his family. Mexico remained his home in his mind and in his heart.
For my mother, home was wherever our family was together. Whether we lived in an old garage, a tent, or a dilapidated labor camp, she called each place nuestra casa, our home. When we lost our possessions in a fire, she reminded us that we were safe and that we still had one another. For her, family was what made a place home.
My own understanding of home was different. As a child, I longed for a permanent place to live. I wanted stability, especially so that I could attend school without interruption. Moving from place to place and missing weeks of school each year made me yearn for a place I could call my own. Even the small possessions I carried with me, my collection of pennies and my little vocabulary notebook, gave me a sense of continuity and belonging.
Eventually, my family found a more permanent home at Bonetti Ranch. Although we lived in an old, run-down army barrack, we transformed it into a home through our work and care. For the first time, I could attend school from beginning to end. That stability meant a great deal to me.
Yet when I left home for college, I discovered that home could also be found in memory. I missed my family and longed to be with them again. As I reflected on my childhood and began writing about those experiences, I discovered that my memories connected me to my family, my past, and my identity. Writing became a way of going home.
Today, I understand home as place, community, and, most importantly, being and identity. Home is also memory and history. It is not simply where we live, it is where we belong, where we find meaning, and where we carry the people and experiences that have shaped us.
In many ways, my life has been a search for home. As a child, I left one place after another longing for permanence. Later, while away at college and writing about my childhood, I discovered that I could carry home within me.
I left home to find home.
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Sergio Domeyko
Publisher
Co-Founder, COO & Publisher of Silicon Valley Latino, covering Latino business and culture across the Bay Area and beyond since 2011.