First Person

Coming Home to Find Work

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By Peter S. Cahn

At 16, when I envisioned my adult life, all I knew was that it wouldn't be in Sacramento, Calif. I felt no animus toward my hometown; in fact I often defended it from the supercilious barbs of my Southern California relatives. However, I associated the tree-lined streets and ranch-style homes with my sheltered childhood and not the fast-paced glamour of my intended career, whatever that might be.

Ten years later, my career goals have been clarified, and the map of my potential destinations has come into focus. Since September, I have kept track of the openings for an assistant professor of anthropology. After reading each one, I have paused to consider what life would be like in Philadelphia, St. Paul, or any of the other places where there are jobs. During the course of the fall I had a chance to reflect on dozens of campuses in a range of climates with varying proximity to decent ethnic food. The prospect of arriving in any one of these places as a faculty member excited me.

Then I saw a job announcement unusually well-tailored to my geographic and topical interests. California State University at Sacramento was looking for an assistant professor of anthropology. For the first time, I didn't have to use much imagination to picture myself on the job.

The Sacramento campus has been a familiar and positive presence for me from my kindergarten days. It's only a few miles from my parents' house, and a well-traveled bike path along the American River connects my old neighborhood to the university. My sister and I attended a summer camp held at Sac State, as locals call it, when we were kids. One afternoon I stayed in the swimming pool after all the other children had left to get dressed to go home. When our father came to pick us up, he ran anxiously to the pool to find me happily splashing around.

Later, in middle school, I attended summer school at Sac State, carpooling with two other classmates. Although the physics class did not inspire me, I loved the feel of the verdant campus with its imposing buildings. I remember going into the main library and feeling humbled to discover they did not catalog their books using the Dewey Decimal System, as my school library did. I vowed that one day I would learn to decipher this complex new code. Everything about the campus seemed sophisticated and just slightly out of my reach.

When it came time to choose a university myself, I was determined to leave Sacramento and the entire West Coast if possible. Sac State and the University of California campuses too easily evoked childhood for me to establish my full independence there. For the next four years, a desire to put distance between a provincial upbringing and a predestined urbanity guided my decisions about geography.

Perhaps it was the extended exposure to subfreezing winter temperatures or just a natural process of maturation that made California attractive again. At first considering location in selecting a graduate program seemed secondary to finding a supportive academic adviser. But given the length of Ph.D. programs and the importance of support networks for survival, I felt justified in picking a university in California close to my family. Although I did not take advantage of my renewed proximity to Sacramento very often as a graduate student, it was reassuring to know a visit home did not require advance airline reservations.

This year, as a postdoctoral scholar, I am farther from my parents, but still in California. Living here requires less of an adjustment for me than it would in other places. I am used to buying produce at farmers' markets and peppering my speech with "dude" every so often. Yet the idea of starting my faculty career in a new place continues to hold some appeal.

As I entered the job search this year, I have resigned myself to a certain geographical impotence. I prepared my family by telling them I would be applying to universities across the country. When friends asked me where I would like to teach if I had my druthers, I replied that I had no ideal city in mind, just a department that would be a good intellectual fit.

Then I saw the advertisement for Sac State. I flashed back to the images of the campus stored in my memory. The library would not be quite so intimidating now that I'm used to the Library of Congress classification system. And my parents, nearing retirement, would be close by.

I debated whether to tell them about the possibility of my working so close to home. There was no reason to get their hopes up. Despite their unstinting confidence in my abilities, positions in academe are very competitive, and surely this announcement would elicit more than 100 applications. I decided to do some research first. On the department's Web site, I read the biographies of the faculty. One name seemed particularly familiar. As I read more, I realized his daughter had been my high-school classmate. I suppose I knew her father taught at Sac State, but it had never occurred to me that I could end up as his colleague.

The more announcements I saw, the more convinced I became to reconsider my old prejudices about my hometown and include Sac State along with my applications to work in more "exotic" locales like Philadelphia and St. Paul. Not only have I changed since I lived at home, but so has my hometown. Returning to Sacramento would not mean regressing to childhood because I would arrive with an understanding of independence that goes beyond simple geographical separation from my past.

The prospect of teaching in a part of the country where I haven't lived before still appeals. At the same time, I would probably have much to learn from a place I thought I knew so well.