Choose a controversial episode from California’s history that Didion does not address or explore deeply in her analysis, such as the California Genocide of the Indigenous peoples or the exploitation of Chinese migrant labor in building the railways in the 1860s. What key elements of Didion’s general arguments are applicable to this episode? In what ways, if any, does the episode complicate or contradict some of her assertions?

Analyze the methods Californians use to romanticize their history and their land. How does the sentimentalization of the past and the landscape obscure California’s reality? How does this nostalgia affect both individual citizens and the state at large?

Examine moments in the text when Didion blends anecdote with archival research and statistical data. Do Didion’s experiences bolster the veracity of her claims about Californian identity? Why or why not?

Didion writes this book as an adult looking back on the stories of her adolescence. Examine the ways Didion claims her perspective on California has changed. What caused these changes? In what ways is her perspective still potentially limited or flawed?

How does Didion explore and interrogate the nature of identity in the text? How do different forms of identity—personal, familial, political—overlap or contradict one another?

Analyze the figures in the text who, to Didion, symbolize specific facets of Californian identity. How do these individuals and their defects of character reflect the larger political Californian entity?

Didion was a proponent of the New Journalism movement, which blended reportage with literary elements of style more common in novels or stories. What literary and rhetorical techniques does Didion employ in Where I Was From? What are the effects or uses of these techniques in the text?

Analyze the role of mothers and grandmothers in passing down the stories, skills, and values of California’s pioneer ancestors. How does Didion share in this tradition? How does she examine the role of the past in the present more generally?