“I like to play outside cause that’s where the world is. Princesses always play outside.”

“I remember as a girl visiting Missouri where my mom grew up, and discovering that lightning bolts could actually look like lightning bolts. In California the sky just lights up when there’s lightning.”

Geographically the second-largest of 17 wards, the 7th ward was gutted in half by the construction of I-10 in 2009 (so that it could avoid wealthier areas), and is an eclectic mix of old and new rarely visited by anyone from outside the city.

"I been here my whole life. Don't wanna be nowhere else. But it changed."

“I was born and raised in North Hollywood over the hill from Tinsel Town, and I became Coppola's gardener - well part of the family really. Everybody lived in the valley back then, so they’d commute over the hill or whatever… get a load of this dog. She must have a mineral deficiency, but she’s having a good time. She keeps me going.”

“I grew up on a river in South Dakota, and I always wanted to be a farmer. I gave up a lot of money working in corporate interior design and finally moved out here. Last year after taxes, I made only $30 over expenses.

But I'm connected to this land.”

“I work here in the afternoons, and at a violin repair shop in the mornings. I love it – it broke my heart when the shop closed down for a few months. It’s a disappearing art.”

“I lived in Austin for a little while and I came back. Cities and I don’t mix. I was born a country girl, man, and I’ll die a country girl. I know everybody here and they know me.”

“I’m 71 years old, and I’m out here playing God’s music to support a house I help run for teenage girls. We lost our funding, but we’re going to keep it open. Everyone needs a home.”

“Whenever I meet a visitor of Pueblo descent I say, ‘Welcome home.’ My mom was born on an English flag, and she had to earn her citizenship here. So I get really upset with people who belittle immigrants, because unless you’re native blood, we all are.”

“I had no idea I would stay, when I was brought here to work. I was born in Quito, Ecuador, and had never been to the US. I just want to do something that helps others – that is what brings me joy. That, and my two daughters.”

Ira’an was an oil boom town named for Ira and Ann Yates, owners of the ranch upon which the town was built when the Yates Oil Field was discovered. Population peaked in 1930 at 1,600 – in 2010 it was 1,229. These kind three work at a local garage, one of two in town, and never don’t make time for strangers in need.

“I would like to imagine that I was born along the river in San Joaquin County, which is the French camp, where Gypsies lived along the river. I imagined romantically that I was born in that gypsy camp, but of course I wasn’t. I was born in the hospital.”