When you walk into Mi Rancho, it feels like you’re stepping into a community marketplace where everyone knows each other. In a way, that’s exactly where you are. Make no mistake, the community that shops and eats here is close-knit, and if you go often enough, they’ll remember you, too.

Kira Iaconetti, 20, has had a lot of performances in her life, but the most nerve-racking wasn’t for an audience at Benaroya Hall or for her fellow community members in Lynden.

Iaconetti’s scariest performance was for an audience of fewer than 10 people — all of them medical professionals there to remove her brain tumor.

Jane Wong is someone with deep, widespread roots. They ground her in China in the rows of crops her ancestors planted for generations. They grow deep into the fertile New Jersey soil and dig into the wet earth of the Pacific Northwest.