My contribution to Obscura’s Community Commission examines American life in 2022 through the lens of California’s Imperial Valley. As an irrigated desert with extensive renewable energy projects, bordered to the North by the environmental catastrophe that is the Salton Sea and to the South by the towering new US/Mexico border wall, the valley is a study in contradictions and a fascinating place from which to examine a variety topics and issues that the we continue to face - environmental degradation, immigration, education, employment and the effects of the pandemic on daily life to name a few. My approach is broad, but has a tendency to zoom in on the experience of youth and how they have been affected by the past two years, the myriad decisions in which they have had no say, and their dwindling opportunities and options as they enter into adulthood.