I like to linger at the boundaries. I was raised among the grapes of rural California. Immigrant farmers brought the vines, other immigrants tended them. Far from the physical border of the United States, I was nonetheless in the borderlands. Whether I am reflecting on the cultural outposts of my childhood neighbors or I am investigating the cultural reproduction of Silicon Valley in the Pacific Rim, frontiers intrigue me. My passions, intellectual and recreational, lead me to play with people who cross boundaries and create new culture. 

I read my first anthropology book at 12, Patterns of Culture, by Ruth Benedict. I thought it was the most amazing book I had ever read, but I believed I had to be more practical in my choice of career and that I could never be an anthropologist. My faculty at the California State University, Fresno Anthropology Department, and at the UC Santa Barbara Anthropology Department inspired me to forge ahead. I remained on the boundaries of archaeology and cultural anthropology, learning about the cultures of the world and digging in scenic Santa Barbara County, and elsewhere in California. Even today I zip over to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History to enjoy its exhibits on the Chumash people, or travel to the American Southwest to explore its ancient cultures, such as the Anasazi. 

While at Santa Barbara I did research in Suriname and the Netherlands on the Kwinti maroons, tribal African-Americans who joyously mixed elements from many cultures and have steadfastly maintained their identity in the face of oppression. I have not been there in many years and I try to keep up with the changes there through sites like The Homepage for Surinam,  Surinam.net and Lanic
I came back to the United States intrigued with cultures that borrow. On my own doorstep were folks who borrowed medical traditions from around the world. These holistic healers synthesized knowledge from European intellectuals, Native Americans and Asians. The use of Chinese traditional medicine by non-Chinese was particularly fascinating to me and set the stage for my work in China. 

After my doctorate I began to teach at the University of Puget Sound in the Spring and at CSU Fresno in the Fall. CSU Fresno had an innovative program, Man and the Natural Environment (MNE), that combined anthropology, biology, geology and environmental studies. Students and three faculty would spend more than six weeks camping in Utah, Nevada, Mexico and rural California. I would flintnap (chip stone tools) in the Owens Valley and discuss missionization and tourism in Baja California. Our topics would range from volcanoes and brine flies to the Paiutes and the activists of the Save Mono Lake Committee.  The program continues today as  Humans in the Natural Environment (HNE).

Teaching would never be the same for me. I also got used to life on the road, husband and baby daughter in tow. It was a big jump to the next road show. From 1988-1990 we moved the family to Chengdu, Southwestern China. Both Karl and I taught at the Foreign Language Training Institute of Chengdu University of Science and Technology, which is now part of Sichuan University. 

There we lived, making hilarious cultural mistakes such as paying foreign currency for peaches on our first day in the free market. We taught English language, academic and Western cultural skills, preparing us to appreciate the experience of Iron and Silk. We traveled in Western China, from the lands of the Han people to the Moslem frontier along the Silkroad. Chinascape and China Books are two of our favorite links for China information.