California is a tremendously diverse state. For the wealth of the Bay, we also have the poverty of the Imperial Valley and San Bernardino. It makes California

California is a tremendously diverse state. For the wealth of the Bay, we also have the poverty of the Imperial Valley and San Bernardino. It makes California a true melting-pot, and the externalities of the wealthy areas serve as an engine to bring people up out of poverty in those other areas. You can grow up as the child of a dirt-poor undocumented farmworker, attend a California Community College, and transfer to a world-class public university. Not exactly that sequence of events, but this congressman is kind of an illustration of that arc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Ruiz_(politician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Ruiz_(politician)