I was working on the background for what would become a children's (middle grade) novel, now published, titled Step Up to the Plate, Maria Singh. I wanted to see Yuba City for myself. I wanted to meet with descendants of Punjabi Mexican families like those in my novel. Two memories endure. One is of meeting wonderful, generous people who shared their time, stories, memories, photographs, food. Another is of walking around Yuba City with a 1945 map in hand, printed out at the library. I wanted to get some kind of sense of what that landscape was like decades earlier. It worked. As I walked, I started to imagine the narrative of my novel into being.