They say, “write what you know.” But when I decided to set several of my stories in Chavez Ravine, I didn’t know the area in Los Angeles first-hand. The city had evicted the residents long before I was born. But my mother and her family talked about what it was like living in the hilltop neighborhoods of Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop before the evictions.

My family described the rolling hills, the open spaces, a tight-knit community of Mexican Americans where everyone knew everyone (and their b...