2025: Heritage Premium Edition

Opposite: Bagpiper Ted Hales performs

HISTORY PARK

San Jose’s sprawling area is an all-encompassing archive of the distant and recent past

STORY BY JOHN METCALFE

ILLUSTRATION BY PEP BOATELLA

Back when the concept of electricity was still new and thrilling, San Jose decided it would erect a humongous “Electric Light Tower” to illuminate downtown. Looking like a misplaced, 237-foot-tall oil derrick and cited later as an inspiration for the Eiffel Tower, the structure was electrified in 1881 to much fanfare — and soon dismay, as people discovered this thing called light pollution.

“Local farmers complained that the tower’s lights disturbed their chickens and prevented them from roosting,” according to History San José, a local nonprofit preservation group. “Another common problem was that intoxicated individuals tried to climb the tower after leaving nearby bars.”

The tower was damaged in a windstorm and eventually collapsed upon itself in 1915. But its legacy lives on as a half-scaled replica inside History Park, a 14-acre public attraction in Kelley Park operated by History San José. Historical museums dot the Bay Area landscape. They’re tucked in railroad depots, for example, in Danville, Niles

Photographs of Portuguese immigrants, right, and dioramas, below, are among the displays at the Portuguese Historical Museum at San Jose’s History Park.

SHAE HAMMOND/ STAFF

IF YOU GO

Enter San Jose’s free History Park at 635 Phelan Ave. The park is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily; buildings and trolley rides are open on weekends only. Find information on the park’s docentled walking tours, public lectures, workshops and cultural festivals at historysanjose.org

and Tiburon, at John Muir’s house in Martinez and in a cable car barn in San Francisco.

History Park is different. The sprawling grounds are home to more than 30 historically important buildings, or their replicas, that have been painstakingly moved here, duplicating life in the Santa Clara Valley from around 1880 to 1930. There are the abodes of California poets and naturalists, a one-room 1872 schoolhouse and cringe-inducing medical office, functioning century-old cable cars and several mini-museums — museums within a larger museum — devoted to local Chinese, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Mexican and African-American history.

It’s a feast for history buffs who crave tangible experiences as well as for people who simply want a brief respite from our hectic times in the big city.

“History involves all of us, from all different backgrounds, so we try to honor that at the park,” says Ken Middlebrook, a collections curator for History San José. “And it’s special, because we provide this little oasis in San Jose. It’s very peaceful, and you can walk around with-

out any fear of being hit — other than by a trolley, I guess.” History Park opened in 1971 and was initially informed by so-called “museum towns” on the East Coast, such as Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts and Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. “Their thinking was that one particular moment in history is frozen. That was the original idea for History Park, based around the Electric Light Tower from 1881 to 1915. They were going to create a Victorian village,” says Bill Schroh, Jr., His-

tory San José president and CEO.

But over the years, the thinking around historical villages and museums has evolved. “If you went to these places 30 years ago, you’d see what I call ‘dead-White-men’s history,’” says Schroh, Jr. “You would not hear about women or minorities. You might see a minority face, but they kind of glossed over slavery, depending if you were in the North or South.

“History San Jose is at a point where we celebrate every culture and heritage that made Silicon

Valley what it is today,” he says.

“We discuss how America’s never been perfect, but it’s an amazing place, and all of its stories need to be told.”

Among them is the tale of an early Chinatown born from painful circumstances. “People think San Jose is this great multiracial place, but we had blemishes. And back in the 1800s, there was rampant racism toward the Chinese community,” says Middlebrook. “In 1887, White residents were not happy with having these ‘dirty Chinese’

right downtown. Under mysterious circumstances, there was a fire that burned (their neighborhood) down, and the Chinese had no homes. A fellow by the name of John Heinlen offered a sanctuary for Chinese people in what is now considered Japantown, called Heinlenville.”

There, residents built a social hall and temple called Ng Shing Gung. It eventually was demolished, but preservationists built a replica on the grounds of History Park and opened it as the Chinese American

Historical Museum. (About half the buildings in the park are reproductions.) The first floor has exhibits devoted to the Chinese-American experience in Santa Clara, and the second story has the temple’s original altar — which was made in Guangzhou, China, but had been languishing in storage at a municipal baseball field — lovingly restored.

“It’s this beautiful, gold-plated altar with hand carvings — just gorgeous,” says Middlebrook. Anti-Japanese sentiment in

Above: The showpiece of the park’s Chinese American Historical Museum is the Ng Shing Gung, Temple of the Five Gods.

SHAE HAMMOND/ STAFF

California was notorious around World War II. One local farming family, the Sakauyes, were sent to internment camps but, unlike most, had the rare good luck of coming back to reclaim their property. History Park has some of the family’s early-1900s cabins on display, showing the conditions that migrant workers lived in while building Santa Clara up as an agricultural paradise known idealistically as the “Valley of Heart’s Delight.”

One cabin is laid out according to the memories of a local professor whose Mexican family worked in the California fields. “He described it as six kids and

“ We discuss how America’s never been perfect, but it’s an amazing place, and all of its stories need to be told.”

Bill Schroh, Jr.

History San José president and CEO

mom sharing one bed, and dad had a bad back, so he had his own bed,” says Katrina Anderson, curator and registrar for History San José.

The cabin next door shows the living quarters of braceros, Mexican migrant workers, with bunk beds and bottles of beer, no doubt a necessity. “It looks like it’s rough and not the greatest conditions to live in. It’s roofed, which is a nice thing,” says Anderson. “The braceros did shifts, so one would go out during the day and another would sleep, then that one would go out at night and the

The park’s museums and landmarks include the house (top) that once belonged to painter, photographer and conservationist Andrew P. Hill; the Chinese American Historical Museum (center) and the Viet Museum (bottom), which focuses on the experience of Vietnamese Americans and their journey from Vietnam.

SHAE HAMMOND/STAFF

other would take his bed.”

Near these modest buildings is an Italianate-style farmhouse built in 1877 that’s now home to the Viet Museum, telling the stories of “boat people” who fled Vietnam for freedom after the end of the war. There’s also the Portuguese Historical Museum at the Imperio, an impressive replica of a structure built in San Jose around 1915 to honor the holy spirit. Its outdoor plaza has a scale model of a famous mosaic in Lisbon, a monumental compass that pays tribute to Portugal’s navigational and imperial triumphs.

Some of the park’s buildings

get their juice from the characters behind them. There’s the former home of Andrew P. Hill, a founding Sempervirens Club member (motto: “Save the Redwoods”) who helped create Big Basin State Park; and the house of Edwin Markham, a poet whose 1898’s “Man With the Hoe” captured the laboring class’ bleak plight. (“Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans/ Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,/The emptiness of ages in his face,/And on his back the burden of the world.”)

A different type of hardship is presented in the office of Dr. Henry Warburton. The

Englishman worked as a surgeon aboard a San Franciscobound whaling ship before opening shop in Santa Clara in the 1870s. The office is accessorized with bone saws, chloroform masks and surgical kits — seen as an improvement over an average doctor’s multitool, the Bowie knife.

“They had a high death rate back then because of all the bacteria,” a park guide says on a recent tour. “The surgeon could perform an amputation in 45 seconds, but the patients generally died from sepsis.”

A dentist later took over the office, and tools of his trade are displayed as well, including porcelain-tooth implants that replaced hippopotamus and walrus bone, and a 19th-century “tooth key” to loosen bad teeth that caused jaw fractures and soft-tissue damage. There’s also a dental chair, with an ominous handcuff attached. “There wasn’t any lidocaine,” says the guide, “and the dentist had to use a foot-pumped drill to perform surgical procedures.”

The curators of History Park accessorize its buildings with appropriate artifacts from that time. It’s a challenge, given the immense collections of History San José stored in various offsite locations — roughly 150,000 artifacts, including more than 70,000 photographs. The park hopes to install more rotating galleries in the future, but for now, curious people can peruse an online archive of fascinating material that extends to the rise of Silicon Valley.

“We have an original Apple 1 computer that was made in the garage and is actually signed by Woz,” says Schroh Jr. “Another fun thing from modern times is a model for Chuck E. Cheese that the gentleman who (co-founded) Atari, Nolan Bush-

Above: A portrait of Andrew P. Hill hangs in his house at History Park.

Above, left: The Viet Museum is also known as the Museum of the Boat People & the Republic of Vietnam.

Bottom, left: MexicanAmerican writer and Santa Clara University professor Francisco Jiménez’s descriptions inspired this migrant home exhibit at History Park.

SHAE HAMMOND/ STAFF

nell, used to get investors. It’s half-Chuck E. Cheese, half-skeleton, and is pretty creepy. You can see the robotics on the inside — only half of it has got skin.”

The archives contain darker material, too, like late-1800s advertising for fruits and vegetables assuring they were packed using “White Labor Exclusively” and gruesome material about the 1933 lynching of two accused kidnappers in St. James Park. A mob broke into the jail with a battering ram and strung them up, at least one naked, with the California governor at the time calling it “a fine lesson for the whole nation.”

Preserving such artifacts is important, says Schroh Jr., because if we don’t remember where we come from, we’re not going to get to where we need to in the future.

“There’s that great quote, which is actually a mantra on the wall in my office: ‘Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.’ The second part of that is, those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly, while everyone else repeats it because they didn’t study.”

Museums explore history of two regions and a powerful movement

BY JOHN METCALFE

From the Gold Rush to World War II to the rise of Silicon Valley, the Bay Area’s history is rich, varied, often problematic but never boring. Here are three museums devoted to chronicling regional history in the Bay that are worth exploring in 2025 and beyond.

MUSEUM OF THE SAN RAMON VALLEY

Located inside a restored 1891 Southern Pacific Railroad depot, this museum chronicles the region’s history from mastodon fossils to Native American artifacts up to vintage farm equipment and household gadgets from the suburban era. Special exhibits have examined groovy ‘60s culture in the valley and climate change’s effects on

California wildflowers. Once a year, the museum fills an 1889 schoolhouse with costumed third graders to teach them about the way education used to be — how to tie up horses, call your elders “ma’am” and “sir” and pretend to forget about smartphones.

Details: Open Tuesday-Sunday at 205 Railroad Ave., Danville. $5 adult admission, museumsrv.org

SAN MATEO COUNTY HISTORY MUSEUM

Located inside a 1910 courthouse in Redwood City, with one of the largest stained-glass domes on the West Coast, this charming museum chronicles the history of the Peninsula with unique collections and interactive experiences.

There’s one exhibit on how the Ohlone people and settlers survived off natural bounty, from redwood forests to oyster beds. Another traces African-American history in California back to the 1780s. The show topics can be all over the map but are invariably intriguing, from the Cow Palace’s celebrity-studded past to San Mateo’s crime and law enforcement to big-wave surfing at Maverick’s.

Details: Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday at 2200 Broadway, Redwood City. $6 adult admission, historysmc.org

THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY MUSEUM

Oakland’s newest museum, run by the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, is devoted to telling the “true story” of how and why the Black Panthers became a radical force beginning in the 1960s. A recent exhibit explored the Intercommunal Youth Institute in East Oakland, where party members in the 1970s and ‘80s provided alternative education for young Black students in community building and political education. The collections include rare and intimate photos of Panther life and oral histories from prominent figures in the movement. And an ongoing public conversation series examines things like the role of “Comrade Sisters” in the party, contemporary fashion in

Above: Special exhibits at Danville’s Museum of the San Ramon Valley have ranged from quilts to photos of suffragettes.

ARIC CRABB/STAFF ARCHIVES

Center, left: The San Mateo County History Museum is housed inside a 1910 courthouse with a rotunda and spectacular stained glass dome.

Oakland and how Black Panther lessons of yesteryear can inform the future.

Details: Open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Wednesday-Saturday (Monday and Tuesday by appointment) at 1427 Broadway, Oakland. Free, blackpantherpartymuseum.org

The Black Panther Party, celebrated here at a 2016 Oakland Museum of California exhibit, has its own museum now in downtown Oakland.

JANE TYSKA/STAFF ARCHIVES

PHOTO COURTESY OF JERRY PIERCE FOR THE SAN MATEO COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The contributions of California’s early Italians go beyond what you might imagine

BY LINDA BOZZO ZAVORAL

Quick, picture America’s first Italians.

Does a New York street scene — brownstones, hawkers, kids in newsboy caps playing stick ball — come to mind?

It’s a common misconception, even among those of Italian heritage. But it was California that was home to the nation’s first large wave of Italian immigrants, who came here seeking their fortune in 1849. The Gold Rush, not the Big Apple, was the attraction.

“We got a 20- to 30-year head start on New York and the East Coast,” said Little Italy San Jose president Joshua DeVincenzi Melander, who has researched and curated a museum for that district.

To wit, San Francisco holds claim to the oldest Italian heritage parade in the nation. First held in 1868, that celebration predates New York City’s inaugural parade by decades.

These newcomers’ contributions to California “can’t be overestimated,” according to an immigration history from the Museo Italo Americano in San Francisco.

“Italian immigrants arrived early to the Golden State and established wineries, farms, canneries, fishing enterprises, factories and banks,” then-board president Mark D. Schiavenza wrote in the report.

Today, you can trace much of that legacy in places such as San Francisco’s North Beach, the East Bay’s Italian-American social clubs, Monterey’s fisheries, the Sierra’s former mining towns and San Jose’s historic revival district of Little Italy, where eateries and a new museum/ cultural center await.

Here are five stories about the impact of those early ltalian-Californians:

DID YOU KNOW?

A man who made his money in the San Jose produce industry became ‘America’s banker’

Among the trailblazers was one of the nation’s biggest names in banking, A.P. Giannini. He was born in 1870 in San Jose in his family’s Swiss Italian Hotel, a boardinghouse located near what is now San Pedro Square — and not far from a surviving boardinghouse that is now Henry’s Hi Life restaurant.

He worked as a teen and young adult in his stepfather’s produce business before embarking on a banking career.

In 1904, he founded the Bank of Italy, pioneering the extension of credit to working-class immigrants, a concept unheard of in those days. In the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake and fires, he famously raced to the bank to rescue gold, coins and securities and take them to his San Mateo County home for safekeeping.

When he died in 1949, the financial institution that had become the Bank of America was the nation’s No. 1 in assets.

At the Little Italy Museum, a bust of Giannini anchors a corner along with vintage photos of downtown San Jose’s Bank of Italy, a landmark skyscraper from 1926 that’s being transformed into housing and retail.

DID

YOU KNOW?

San Francisco’s ‘Ghirardelli’

sign should be in Stockton

Domenico Ghirardelli, who was born into a family of gourmet food importers, sailed to the United States in 1849 — reportedly headed to the Mother Lode.

However, like Levi Strauss, he became a supplier to the miners instead.

Already a trained chocolatier, Ghirardelli in 1849 established a store in Stockton, where he made confections and sold them and other goods to miners, according to the company history. He then expanded the business to San Francisco, opening a second shop that year. A few years later, S.F. became home base.

Ghirardelli died in 1894 on a visit to Italy, but his sons had taken over the company by then. The factory made it through the 1906 earthquake unscathed, resuming operations within 10 days.

The Ghirardelli name has been emblazoned on the San Francisco waterfront since 1923 (minus four months for upgrades).

The old Bank of America building in downtown San Jose was the one-time site of a branch of the Bank of Italy, founded by Amadeo Peter Giannini and a forerunner of Bank of America.

GARY REYES/STAFF ARCHIVES

DID

YOU KNOW?

The Italian Swiss Colony had marketing geniuses

In 1881, entrepreneurial immigrant Andrea Sbarboro — who had been in the States since the 1850s — founded the Italian Swiss Colony on vineyard and winery acreage in Asti in Sonoma County. By the early 1900s, the winery, known for its Tipo table wines, became California’s leading wine producer.

Sbarboro and partner Pietro Rossi even marketed their winery during those years by mailing out calendars showing Italian tavern scenes — “long before graphic designers were chosen to create wine labels or marketing campaigns,” according to the Wine History Project of San Luis Obispo County. Each label also depicted a straw-covered bottle of wine.

In the 1960s, the winery itself became a draw, thanks to the TV commercials with “the little old winemaker ... me!” jingle. Visitors could find Italian villas, a Roman statue of Bacchus, flower gardens and a picnic area — and an underground, circa 1897 vat built to hold half a million gallons of wine.

In its heyday, the Italian Swiss Colony was Sonoma County’s largest tourist attraction, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported, with up to 300,000 visitors annually.

Bottom: An undated photo of flats of drying fruit is on display at the Saratoga Community Library. In the early part of the 20th century, this region was known as the “Valley of Heart’s Delight.”

Top: The century-old sign above Ghirardelli Square shines brightly in San Francisco.

KARL MONDON/STAFF ARCHIVES

SARATOGA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

DID YOU KNOW?

The Valley of Heart’s Delight predated Silicon Valley

Agriculture, not silicon, first put Santa Clara Valley on the map. The global map.

The Mediterranean climate was ideal for fruit cultivation, giving rise to the “Valley of Heart’s Delight” name and postcards picturing blossom-filled fields. For decades in the 20th century, this was the largest fruit-producing and packing region in the world, with 39 canneries.

A 1919 article in the San Jose Evening News by Edith Daley

told the story of one major orchard and cannery, Bisceglia Bros., whose operation was fueled by an immigrant workforce.

“Early in the spring, before the blossoms lost their petals,” she wrote, “the Bisceglia Bros. sent out a circular letter calling attention to their cottages and ‘free rent.’ As soon as the cherries began to redden, the help commenced to arrive. By twos and sevens and tens, they are still coming!”

A company secretary tells the reporter that “workers like the cherry pack because the cherries are clean and pretty to handle, but there is more money to be made in apricots and peaches. The women are averaging about $25 per week.”

That year, more than half of

the cannery output would be shipped overseas to England, France and Belgium.

“If it were not for these Italians and others who answer the yearly call of the fruit, one wonders just where our boasted industry would be,” Daley wrote.

DID YOU KNOW?

The Jacuzzi was invented in Berkeley, not Italy

The children of 1907 immigrants Giovanni and Teresa Jacuzzi made a name for themselves in the aviation industry. According to East Bay Times archives and the Museo Italo Americano, the story started with son Rachele, who — with just a third-grade education — developed a propeller so innovative that it merits a display in the Smithsonian.

The Jacuzzi Brothers opened a factory on San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley to manufacture propellers, and they set about inventing a monoplane. However, when a tragic flight accident took the life of one of the Jacuzzis, family members turned their attention away from aviation and toward more grounded ventures. They achieved great commercial success building water pumps.

Their signature invention came about in the 1940s, when they were asked to develop a home whirlpool bath for a relative with rheumatoid arthritis. Worldwide sales and acclaim followed.

SHAE HAMMOND/STAFF

Despite many competitors in the decades since, “It is the Jacuzzi name that has come to signify a magically luxurious, California-like lifestyle,” proclaimed a 1985 Orlando Sentinel article.

Top: The Jacuzzi Brothers’ pump factory in Berkeley.

PHOTO COURTESY ROY JACUZZI

Above: Little Italy San Jose president Joshua DeVincenzi Melander curated a museum for the historic district.

neighborhood draws locals, tourists and celebrities alike. It’s said that Francis Ford Coppola worked on “The Godfather” script here.

Opposite: Italian restaurants, pizzerias and coffee bars line the streets of North Beach.

Right: The iconic Caffe Trieste in San Francisco’s North Beach

KARL MONDON/STAFF ARCHIVES

DOUG DURAN/STAFF ARCHIVES

Food, festivals and aboundgames for embracing the Italian heritage

BY LINDA ZAVORAL AND JASON MASTRODONATO

If you’re a Bay Area resident with some Italian heritage, you’re in good company — 400,000 people across the region claim the same.

And if you’re simply Italo-curious — interested in taking a walking tour of North Beach, say, or bowling toward a pallino — you’re about to be in very good company.

Here are five ways to channel your inner Italian around the Bay.

HIT THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT

Where can you learn to toss pizza dough, belt out “O Sole Mio” in a crowd or watch grape-stompers do their best Lucy impersonations?

At the Bay Area’s Italian festivals, of course, which celebrate food, wine, music and history. Add these dates to your 2025 calendar:

North Beach Festival, San Francisco: In 2024, this 11-block-long event celebrated its 70th anniversary with interactive art activities, a chalk zone, poetry readings and a traditional Blessing of the Animals in addition to food, music and vendors. Details: Typically held in June along Columbus Avenue and nearby streets; www.northbeachfestival.org

Italian Family Festa, San Jose: Cultural experiences are a specialty of the Italian American Heritage Foundation. Previous festivals have featured Venetian mask making, medieval-style flag throwing, grape stomping, Italian card games and sessions on growing an Italian garden. And kids can play on a bocce court that’s just their size. Details: Early August at History Park in San Jose; www.iahfsj.org

Festa Italia Monterey: Officially

Top: Morgan Hill Mayor Mark Turner was one of several mayors competing in the grape stomp last summer at San Jose’s annual Italian Family Festa.

Above: It’s not an Italian festival without cannoli.

SHAE HAMMOND/ STAFF ARCHIVES

called the Festa Italia Santa Rosalia Fisherman’s Festival, this event — now in its 92nd year — includes a Blessing of the Fishing Fleet, tarantella performances, live music and food, including a calamari cooking demo. Details: Early September at Custom House Plaza; https://festaitaliamonterey. org/index.html

Little Italy San Jose Festival: Located where some of the city’s earliest immigrants settled, the Little Italy event features local restaurants, live music, museum tours -- and Italian cars.

More than 150 Ferrari, Lamborghini, Pagani, DeTomoso models and Italian motorcycles were on display last year.

Details: Early October from the arch at Julian and Almaden over to St. John; www.littleitalysj.com

MAKE CONNECTIONS AT THE ITALIANAMERICAN CLUBS

For Italians in the East Bay, there’s nothing like monthly dinner at the Ligure Club, where members pay $25 for a threecourse meal with unlimited wine and a family atmosphere that has kept the club going strong since 1934. And while it originated as a men’s club, it has since opened its doors to women.

“We want to let people who are curious come and see what we’re doing,” said board member Matthew Moglia, 42, an Oakland

native who has been going to club dinners since he was 15.

For the 350-plus members and guests, the Ligure Club hosts Italian cooking classes, salami-making and wine-tasting events, holiday parties, monthly dinners and, of course, bocce tournaments.

In San Jose, the Italian American Heritage Foundation puts a focus on Italy’s regions at monthly luncheons and holds language classes, recipe demos, a crab feed and live music events, including opera. The nonprofit also maintains an

The Colombo Club members and their guests gather for one of the club’s frequent dinners. Founded in Oakland in 1920, the group is America’s largest Italian social club west of the Mississippi.

DOUG DURAN/ STAFF ARCHIVES

Italian-language newspapers circulating. Many Italian residents dispersed after World War II, making way for the Beat Generation, but the area continues to carry rich Italian traditions, and trattorias and pizzerias dot the district.

extensive bilingual library at its Fourth Street center.

Most important, these are places where life slows down and people put their phones away and focus on connecting in conversation.

“Our society is just so fastpaced,” Moglia said. But in Italy, “get ready to slow down. It’s about people. They don’t ask what you do, they ask where you’re from or who your family is. That’s the starting point. That’s what the clubs are intended for. To leave all of that high speed behind. You come to sit

down, have dinner and be with people, enjoy each other and the food and the drinks.”

Other Italian-American clubs in the Bay Area include the Peninsula Italian-American Social Club (San Mateo), Buon Tempo Club (Castro Valley), Colombo Club (Oakland), Italian-American League (Alameda), Fratellanza Club (Oakland), Galileo Club (Richmond), Alpicella Club (Oakland) and the Italian-American Social Club (San Francisco).

Details: ligureclub.com; italianamericanfederation.com.

PLAY BOCCE

Believe it or not, bocce was first played by the Egyptians in 5,200 B.C. and didn’t make its way to Greece and Rome until 800 B.C. The Italians renamed the game bocce — plural for boccia, which means “bowl.” Today, the game is played everywhere, and many Bay Area wineries, as well as some restaurants, have their own courts, so you’re in luck.

Los Gatos’ Campo Di Bocce serves up not only a full menu of antipasti, pasta and pizzas, but its bocce areas, both indoors and out, can be reserved for play.

Livermore’s Da Boccery offers bocce courts plus all-day brunch, pizzas and more. And Sausalito’s Bar Bocce pairs its court with a patio and spectacular Bay views — and all the pizza and aperitivo action you’d expect. You can play bocce by the San Francisco Ferry Building and at Joe DiMaggio Playground in North Beach. Or head for one of the dozens of Bay Area wineries with their own bocce facilities — Pleasanton’s Rubino Estates, perhaps, or Santa Rosa’s D’Argenzio Winery.

Details: Find Campo di Bocce at 565 University Ave. in Los Gatos; campodibocce.com. Da Boccery, 175 E. Vineyard Ave. in Livermore; www. daboccery.com/. Bar Bocce,1250 Bridgeway, Sausalito; barbocce.com.

TAKE A WALKING TOUR IN NORTH BEACH

A reconstructed North Beach rose after San Francisco’s Great 1906 Earthquake and fires and welcomed a great wave of Italian immigrants who brought their food, wine and culture to this now-famous neighborhood. By the 1930s, there were 60,000 residents of Italian descent living in North Beach — and five

A self-guided walking tour by Tours by Foot will help you hit the essentials on Columbus Avenue. Among them: the Transamerica Pyramid (once San Francisco’s tallest building), Cafe Zoetrope (Francis Ford Coppola’s cafe offers classic Italian grub and plenty of film decor), Vesuvio Cafe (once a regular Beat hangout spot for Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady), City Lights Bookstore, Molinari’s old school Italian deli, Caffe Trieste (where Coppola worked on “The Godfather” script) and Saints Peter and Paul Church (the site of Joe DiMaggio’s funeral).

Details: freetoursbyfoot.com

NEED WE SAY IT? MANGIA, MANGIA!

We don’t dare pick favorites when it comes to Italian or Italian-American restaurants. Who could, with all of the fabulous food here in the Bay Area?

However, we do recommend chatting up Italian restaurant owners — especially the ones born in Italy, who came to these shores during the most recent waves of immigration.

They can often provide a window into your past or talk about what your family’s hometown is like these days — while serving you regional specialties you may not have realized were in your DNA. Think Genovese pesto, Calabrian chiles, Sicilian cannoli and Milanese risotto.

And if these paesani reprimand you (in jest, of course) for preferring your pasta with extra sauce or saying yes to grated cheese atop your seafood entree, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Tim Gomes takes a practice shot before a league night for winery teams at Livermore’s Da Boccery. DOUG DURAN/STAFF

Bayanihan lives and breathes in San Francisco’s SOMA

The area’s first sanctioned Filipino district brings the spirit of community alive

BY KYLE MARTIN, NOLLYANNE DELACRUZ AND RYAN MACASERO

Filipino men sit on outdoor stone tables playing chess. Colorful murals of carabao and jeepneys decorate street corners. And Filipino words grace the signs in front of community spaces.

This might sound like a street scene from the Philippines, but it’s right here, in San Francisco’s SOMA Pilipinas Filipino Cultural Heritage District.

SOMA Pilipinas director Raquel Redondiez describes the district as a reflection of the Filipino bayanihan spirit. The word translates to “community

spirit,” often illustrated by the image of townspeople coming together to lift and move a bahay kubo (nipa hut) from one location to another.

“(This) is a place where immigrants and their families come to set roots in the U.S.,” Redondiez says. “And it’s also a place where people come together to support each other.”

Created in 2016, the cultural heritage district extends south of Market Street to Brannan Street and between Eleventh and Second streets. It’s home to several historical landmarks, and the infamous I-Hotel is nearby. The former International Hotel once

Left: A colorful mural, entitled Ani — Harvested Hopes, graces an intersection in the SOMA Pilipinas district in San Francisco, at Fifth and Folsom Streets.

KARL MONDON/ STAFF

held 104 low-income residential units and in 1977, was the site of major protests and mass evictions of Filipino and Chinese immigrant residents, many of them seniors.

It’s an area, the city ordinance noted, that is “home to Filipinos who have been an integral part of the city’s cultural richness, economic prosperity and historical significance.” But it’s not the only one.

The Bay Area is home to some 500,000 Filipinos — 12 percent

of the four million Filipinos in the United States, according to the 2017 American Community Survey. They reside in cities and towns throughout the region, with vibrant Filipino American communities in cities like Daly City, South San Francisco, Union City, Milpitas and beyond, each bringing rich traditions and cultures to the area.

The SOMA Pilipinas organization, which oversees the district’s cultural and special events, is working to preserve

the history of Filipino heritage in Northern California through the commission of several vibrant public murals. You can tour the district via Jeepney — a popular public utility vehicle in the Philippines made from World War II-era Willy Jeeps left behind by the U.S. military. Here, the winsome vehicle totes riders on a tour of the district’s 20 pieces of public artwork, including those murals. Among the latter is the newly refurbished and intricately designed Ang Lipi ni Lapu Lapu mural. Originally painted in 1984 by Johanna Poethig, Vicente Clement and Presco Tabios, it was recently restored by Poethig, Dev Heyrana, Mariel Paat and

The freshlyrestored 90-foot tall Ang Lipi Ni Lapu Lapu mural rises above a community garden in the SOMA Pilipinas district in San Francisco.

Ruiz

This 90-foot by 25-foot mural at the corner of Bonifacio and Lapu Lapu streets depicts centuries of Filipino history. You’ll spot images from the 300-year-old Spanish galleon trade to two-time Olympic gold medalist Victoria Manalo Draves. Boxer Pancho Villa is represented, as is Cebuano chieftain Lapulapu, who is famous for slaying Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. There are Filipino farm workers, nurses and more.

Other important murals in the district include the Carabao, by Franceska Gámez and Cece Carpio at 1052 Folsom St.; the Jeepney mural, also by Carpio, at 975 Bryant St.; and the Ani

Ramon Bonifacio teaches the art of making Filipino ornamental lanterns, or parols, during a senior center gathering at the San Francisco Filipino Cultural Center.

KARL MONDON/STAFF

Pablo

Arroyo.

KARL MONDON/ STAFF

— Harvested Hopes mural by Venazir Martinez at 275 Fifth St.

Although many of the organization’s events are celebratory and inviting, they are birthed from another spirit of SOMA Pilipinas that Redondiez talks about: fighting — for land, for jobs, for housing and for survival.

“I think there’s an inherent fighting spirit within the community to really assert our place and our right to have homes in the city,” Redondiez says. “And (to) have a neighborhood that has the same kind of neighborhood amenities that other parts of the city have, like parks and safety.”

MC Canlas, SOMA Pilpinas’ local historian, notes that xenophobic sentiment fomented

during Donald Trump’s first run for president in 2016. San Francisco’s recognition of the district became a response against the racism that characterized Trump’s campaign, he says. The area’s designation as a cultural district also meant city officials had to get approval from the residents of SOMA before they developed anything in the area.

“You cannot just displace people, that’s the legacy of (the) I-Hotel,” Canlas says.

For decades — long before the official decree — the mixed-use district has served as a plaza, Canlas says. In the Philippines, the plaza was the center of Filipino culture with schools, churches and money transfer services.

San Francisco author Oscar Peñaranda says the plaza reflects the Filipino mindset: the need for community, known as kapwa in Filipino psychology, and the need for a physical center where

Above: In 1968, elderly Filipino and Chinese tenants from the Manilatown district of San Francisco began a nineyear-long, anti-eviction campaign.

COURTESY OF I-HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO

Right:Oscar Peñaranda speaks about the creation of the SOMA Pilipinas district.

KARL MONDON/ STAFF

everything you needed was within reach.

The city with the largest Filipino American population in the country is not San Francisco at all, but Daly City. A third of that city’s residents trace their heritage to that island nation, according to the 2020 census.

But the creation of SOMA Pilipinas makes a notable statement in this community, which houses the Bessie Carmichael School, which offers a bilingual Filipino and English program, senior services and apartment buildings for working-class Filipinos.

While the city has sanctioned a Filipino district, Redondiez says that still doesn’t make up for the effects of a billowing tech sector that has driven prices upward and forced the displacement of thousands of Filipinos in SoMa. Redondiez recalls the tech boom in the early 2000s pricing out many Filipino renters and their families. They were forced to move into other, smaller homes, such as those in the Tenderloin and outside of San Francisco.

SOMA Pilipinas has fought to reassert Filipino presence in the area. The organization purchased a building, for example, whose former tenants actively discriminated, decades ago, against Filipinos with signs barring their entry. Redondiez smirks at the irony of a Filipino-owned building that once segregated the same people.

The group’s Asian American Pacific Islander fund, which totaled about $30 million at its peak, has helped businesses owned and operated by Filipinos and other Asian and Pacific Islander communities buy their own buildings. And other Filipino-owned businesses are beginning to purchase buildings, she says, including Kulintang Arts, an art troupe whose performance pieces preserve the ancestral and tribal arts of the Philippines, and the nonprofit Bayanihan Equity Center, which serves seniors and adults with disabilities.

It is the very definition of the bayanihan spirit.

FOOD, FITNESS, FUN & FLORA

Bay Area Filipino culture embraces them all

BY KYLE MARTIN, NOLLYANNE DELACRUZ AND RYAN MACASERO

San Francisco may be known for its SOMA Pilipinas Cultural Heritage District, but there are Filipino communities — and restaurants and shops and everything else — across the Bay. Here are five ways to explore the Bay Area’s Filipino world.

G-FIRE WINGS, ADOBO AND MORE

Lucky Three Seven’s fame has spread far beyond East Oakland, helped by a fan base that includes hometown celebrities such as P-Lo, E-40, Mistah F.A.B. and other Bay Area superstars. Growing up in a family of avid cooks, restaurant owner Mark Legaspi says he was constantly surrounded by the flavors and fragrance of a Filipino kitchen and took inspiration from that. Lucky Three Seven is especially hood-famous for its G-Fire Wings ($6 for three, $18 for nine), a tangy, lightly spicy fried chicken inspired by his grandmother. But you’ll

JANE TYSKA/STAFF

also find Filipino classics such as longanisa, pork adobo, shrimp laing — taro leaves and shrimp stewed in coconut milk and garlic — and “XL” lumpia. Legaspi and his late cousin, Artgel Fernando “Jun” Anabo Jr., started the business in 2013 and

Above: Joco Rich, Angeline Ongpin, Claryzza Abille and J.R. Bohulano, from left, grab a bite at Oakland’s Lucky Three Seven. Owner Mark Legaspi, left, opened the restaurant in 2013.

named it after the street their family has lived on for decades — on 37th Street. Anabo and Legaspi helped pave the way for the recent surge of popularity for Filipino cuisine across the East Bay.

“We started the Filipino craze,” Legaspi says.

It’s a favorite hangout, too, for Alameda-raised Filipino rapper and entrepreneur Dustin Perfetto, better known as Nump, who is also a fan of Union City’s Gerry’s Grill on Courthouse Drive, which features live music three times a week; the neighboring Jollibe, which has

locations from Brentwood and Concord to Milpitas and Daly City; and Concord’s Seafood City, a market and hangout spot.

Details: Lucky Three Seven is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday at 2868 Fruitvale Ave. in Oakland; https:// lucky-three-seven.com.

MANILA-STYLE BARBECUE AND STREET FOOD

Daly City’s Fil-Am Cuisine has quietly become a beloved destination for Filipino food enthusiasts craving authentic flavors. The unassuming takeout eatery is celebrated for its lutong bahay (homemade-style) barbecue skewers ($3.50 each), reminiscent of the street food stalls in Manila.

“What sets us apart is our pork and chicken barbecue. My husband is the only one who prepares the marinade,” says Venus Alvarado-Guevarra, who has owned the restaurant with her husband, Richard, since 2003.

You’ll find a variety of classic comfort dishes here, including rich beef kaldereta and crispy lumpia Shanghai.

Details: Open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily at 66 School St., Daly City; www. filamcuisine.com.

FILIPINO COMBAT SPORTS AND MARTIAL ARTS

Filipino martial arts encompass a broad range of styles and training methods, from stick-fighting — such as escrima and arnis — to sword-style and even a style of Filipino kickboxing called sikaran. Joselito Sering’s Sabong Federation includes different types of

Top: Lucky Three Seven is known for its G Fire Wings, top, and Longanisa Filipino sausages.

Above: Lucky Three Seven owner Mark Legaspi, left, hangs out with friend and Filipino rapper Nump. JANE TYSKA/STAFF

Filipino martial arts groups in Oakland, Hayward, San Jose and elsewhere, but Sering notes that martial arts was only part of his cultural journey.

“If the intention is to learn about Filipino culture, follow the food, not the sword,” he says. “If the point is to become a better martial artist, better person, have a community, have an activity that you can enjoy, (martial arts) is a great outlet.”

Nump’s favorite Filipino-owned and operated combat sports gyms include Pleasanton’s The Resistance, where legendary One Championship Muay Thai fighter Eddie “Silky Smooth” Abasolo is an owner — and Nump’s coach. He also likes Pallen’s Gym in San Leandro and Omnimovement in Hercules.

“When people talk a lot about Filipino culture, the martial arts don’t really get a shine,” Nump says. “I think that’s going to be the next viral Filipino wave.”

Details: Learn more about martial arts schools and sparring classes at https:// sabongfederation.square.site/. Check out the lineup of muy thai classes and fitness offerings for The Resistance at https:// theresistancefc.com/.

A SKATEPARK IN YOUR POCKET

Remember those miniature skateboards you or your children “rode” with your fingertips?

Kristian Buenconsejo’s Dudr toy company is “rooted in finger boarding,” he says. During the pandemic, Buenconsejo began using a 3-D printer to make miniature and replica-sized skateboards. He started building obstacles, many inspired by the skatepark ramps and obstacles

he encountered growing up in Milpitas and the South Bay, to create “a skatepark in my pocket.” Now, he designs, manufactures and sells fingerboarding skate obstacles out of his San Jose home and online at dudrdesigns. myshopify.com.

FROM SUCCULENTS TO MEMOIRS

The pandemic inspired Dom-

Above, right: A Filipino martial arts group assembles on a small concrete patch under the 280 freeway at Progress Park in San Francisco.

DON FERIA FOR BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

Far right: Pamana Plantas brims with plants, pots and curios.

ARIC CRABB/STAFF

inick Morales, too. The Filipina owner of Pamana Plantas, a specialty plant shop in the Berkeley hills, developed her love for plants during lockdown and opened her shop three years ago. Pamana means “inheritance” — she dedicated the opening of her shop to her late uncle, whom

The pandemic proved a creative inspiration as well for Kenneth Tan, who began his Lola X Kenneth memoir project as he sat at his kitchen table in San Jose, surrounded by paintings created by his Lola — his grandmother. Remembering her stories about her life and their family, Tan began drawing her stories, a memoir illustrated by her paintings. Tan’s illustrated memoirs include “Crescenciana” ($50), which tells the story of Tan’s grandmother, and “Tans Interwoven” ($79), detailing Tan’s family’s life.

The books take you through the life of the Tan family — Crescenciana, Olivia, Audrey and Kenneth — from the 1920s to today, from the Philippines to North America. Because, as Tan puts it, “A family is a collection of loose strands. It’s a choice to wind through life together. It’s a challenge to stay tightly knit.”

Left: Kenneth Tan’s illustrated memoir, “Crescenciana” was named after his grandmother, Crescenciana Tan.

she called Venchito — and the shop is filled with an inheritance of the greenest, most vibrant varieties: succulents, shrubs, small trees, pots and curiosities.

Morales regularly hosts block parties and workshops aimed at preserving Filipino culture, history and traditions.

“All these stories of my Lola’s, they only exist orally. It’s an oral history, nothing documented,” Tan says. “I think we live through our stories, and storytelling is a way of honoring everyone who came before us and preparing those who come after us.”

Details: Pamana Plantas is open from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and until 5 p.m. weekends at 1615B Solano Ave. in Berkeley; https://pamanaplantas.com/. Explore the Tan memoirs, prints and other gift items at lolaxkenneth.com.

Above: Sage and statice bundles are available at Pamana Plantas in Berkeley.

ARIC CRABB/STAFF

NHAT V. MEYER/ STAFF

of the U.S. Public

The museum at Angel Island’s Immigration Station is a searing testament

BY JASON MASTRODONATO

The wooden house on the hill is haunted, and those who once endured its wrath are now the ones holding the doors wide open.

Come inside, and you can almost hear the echoes of the suffering and smell the stench that immigration officers once blamed on the prisoners trapped inside, as a picture of what happened here less than a century ago starts to become clear.

This is the Angel Island Immigration Station, where more than half a million people took their first steps on American soil between 1910 and 1940. Some 300,000 of them were held in its inhospitable walls for weeks, months, even years, while awaiting word on whether or not they would be given a chance in the Land of the Free.

Today, Immigration Station is part of the California State Parks and open to the public. Restored with more than $40 million in public and private funding, it has become a museum that hopes to educate visitors on the wrongdoings of the past and raise awareness of the similar immigration sentiments that still exist today.

“It’s safe to say, nobody detained here thought this place would ever become a museum,” says Casey Dexter-Lee, now in her 24th year as a state

Members of the Board of Special Inquiry conduct immigration interrogations on Angel Island in 1923.

Officers

Health Service at Angel Island make quarantine inspections of passengers on a trans-Pacific line in 1924.

parks employee, living on the island and giving tours. “The history here is so complex that I continue to learn.”

Angel Island has about 30 residents in all today, an eighth of the population that once occupied a single room in the wooden detention barracks a century ago.

With information shared by the park’s inhabitants and its volunteer docents, many of whom share a personal history with Immigration Station, the stories of those who suffered here are starting to resurface.

“In the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, there was no representation or hardly any mention of us (Chinese-Americans) in the history books,” says Mill Valley resident Felicia Lowe. “There was a real question of, ‘Where do I belong? Who are we?’

“My father spent three weeks detained at Angel Island… And once I understood Angel Island, I’ve been so committed to helping promote and continue to tell the story with the context of connecting the dots. Why do we have anti-Asian hate? It started a long time ago. We’re all still affected by it. And among our own cultures, we’re not talking about it.”

Today, we can retrace the steps of Lowe’s father, Thomas Wing Lowe, who arrived at Angel Island as a 21-year-old on April 15, 1938.

Born and raised in China, he walked ashore after a three-week voyage across the Pacific Ocean in hopes of starting a new life as a “paper son,” a term given to those trying to claim citizenship without a birth certificate.

After the 1906 earthquake and subsequent fires burned

“It’s a common cliche to say, ‘if the walls could talk.’ At this site, the walls are speaking of the people who experienced this.”

Casey Dexter-Lee, Angel Island State Park interpreter

down the San Francisco government building that housed all the birth records, there was no way to prove that someone wasn’t an American citizen.

“People could come forward, claim citizenship and list their children with names we know were exaggerated, in part because nine out of 10 of the children reported were boys,” Dexter-Lee says while giving a recent tour. “That’s just not how the world works.”

Even today, immigrants are more likely to be boys, “partic-

COURTESY FELICIA LOWE; COURTESY OF PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE HISTORICAL

PHOTOGRAPH

FILE

Top: A certificate of identity was issued by immigration for Thomas Wing Lowe, who arrived at Angel Island in 1938 and was detained for three weeks.

Above: Intensive physical examination of immigrants took place at the immigration hospital on Angel Island In 1923.

Top: Angel Island State Park Interpreter Casey Dexter-Lee stands at the former Administration Building, where immigrants were interrogated, medically examined and separated by gender and nationality after disembarking at Angel Island. Immigrants from more than 80 countries were detained at the historic Angel Island Immigration Station, the building on the hill, between 1910 and 1940.

ularly when you’re immigrating for labor,” she says. “Men get paid more than women in most industries, and you want to send the greatest earner to be able to send money back home.”

To counteract the new influx of immigrants claiming to be family members of American citizens, the government developed strict tests designed to weed out imposters.

What it really did was create a de facto prison for hopeful immigrants, including many who were legitimate family members or actual citizens, and build a pattern of discrimination that skewed heavily against the Chinese.

The Chinese Exclusion Law of 1882 put a stop on Chinese immigration and was the first known law to ban immigration of a particular race. Not only did it halt laborers from entering, but it created harsh regulations for legitimate Chinese-American citizens reentering their own country.

For the next 80 years, Chinese immigration was strictly limited, until the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, which was intended to remove racial discrimination.

At Angel Island, immigration officers went to great measures to keep Chinese out of the country. While the average stay at Angel Island was only three days for people from other countries, the average stay for a Chinese person was three weeks. Some were detained as long as two years. Several died during that time.

“Some from illness,” Dexter-Lee says. “And some by their own hand.”

The conditions were brutal. Typically, a steamship with American hopefuls would anchor between Alcatraz and San Francisco. Doctors would board to look for signs of highly infectious diseases. If any were found, the ship would head to Angel Island

IF YOU GO

The Golden Gate Ferry ($16 to $31 round trip) runs daily from the San Francisco Ferry Building to Angel Island. The Angel Island Tiburon Ferry ($6-$18 round trip) runs from the dock at 21 Main St. in Tiburon to the island on winter weekends.

The Immigration Station is a 1.2-mile walk from the Ayala Cove dock. Admission to the Angel Island Immigration Museum, which is open from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday, is free. The Detention Barracks Museum and WWII Mess Hall are open the same hours; admission is $3-$5, and guided tours ($3-$7) are available. Find more information at www.aiisf.org.

for “disinfection.” If not, immigration officers would board and begin the investigation process.

But first-class passengers were hardly ever detained.

“Wealth could override any other barrier,” Dexter-Lee says. “Even barriers you would think would be insurmountable, like tuberculosis, something that would be deportable today.”

For third-class “steerage” passengers, the inspection was harsh. Most would be sent to the Angel Island detention center, where they’d step off the boat, register in the administration building and head straight to the hospital, where they were forced to offer blood, urine and stool samples on the spot, with little or no privacy. Women were inspected harshly, as officers performed invasive exams to identify signs of pregnancy without marriage, which was seen as immoral.

Afterward, immigrants were guided up a large set of caged-in stairs (open now for visitors) and separated into

Above: After severe health issues presented themselves, Angel Island finally added a second bathroom with fresh water access and two showers for hundreds of people. The toilets, still viewable today, offered no privacy.

RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF

The poetry of Angel Island

In the barracks of Angel Island’s Immigration Station, leadbased paint concealed the writing on the walls for years. It also protected the walls from moisture and helped preserve the words carved beneath — hundreds of poems and inscriptions written by detainees in languages from around the world.

“These poems were not written for us. They were written for themselves, to express what they were feeling,” says Angel Island State Park interpreter Casey Dexter-Lee. “Some are sad, frustrated and angry. Some are more hopeful. Some are more practical, talking about experiences they’ve had, a long journey on the boat, the invasive medical exam and bad food in the dining hall. There’s a poem about a thief — making sure they don’t leave things on the beds, when they go to the dining halls.”

The following Chinese poem described the anger and humiliation one detainee was feeling:

Alas! Heaven!

So desolate is this sight; It is disheartening indeed.

Sorrow and hardship have led me to this place; What more can I say about life?

Worse yet,

A healthy person would become ill after repeated medical examinations;

A private inspection would render a clothed person naked. Let me ask you, the barbarians: Why are you treating us in such an extreme way?

I grieve for my fellow countrymen; There is really nothing we can do!

wooden barracks. Boys, 12 and older, went with the men to the second floor; women and children stayed on the first floor. Passengers were forced to give up their belongings, save for a set of clothes and a toothbrush, and sleep on metal bunks that initially had no padding.

In the early years, there was no water or soap in the bathroom. After severe health issues presented themselves, Angel Island finally added a second bathroom with fresh water access and two showers for hundreds of people. The toilets, still viewable today, offered no privacy.

Two hundred people were crammed into a room considered by health officials to be “healthy” for only 30. In private journals, immigration officers complained of the stench and often blamed the immigrants’ race, rather than the conditions that had created it.

The rounds of interrogations that followed were intense, especially for anyone claiming to be related to an American citizen. Fathers and sons were questioned separately and their files searched for discrepancies as immigration officers searched for reasons to deport.

Many “paper sons” and “paper daughters” spent the long journey across the ocean preparing for potential questions, but once in front of intense immigration officers, a stenographer and a translator, even actual sons and daughters often answered questions incorrectly.

When Thomas Wing Lowe attempted to immigrate in 1938, for example, his father claimed Thomas was the third child of his first wife. Thomas was actually the first son of his father’s second wife.

Felicia Lowe discovered her father’s journey at Angel Island only after his death. This is not uncommon; many of those who passed through never spoke of it again. But Lowe became curious, and it was in the public records of her father’s interrogation that

Detained Chinese immigrants engraved poems on the walls of the historic Angel Island Immigration Station.

RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF

she found the truth.

“I could see the process he went through,” she says. “What struck me about seeing the material in black and white was that after each time they were interrogated, they had to sign their names. In one, I saw my father’s handwriting was very shaky. It grabbed me by the heart. He must’ve been really scared that time.”

Questions often focused on the immigrants’ lives back in China. What direction did your doorway face? How many windows are in your house? How many steps are there to your front door?

To counteract these intense interrogations, detainees created the Angel Island Liberty Association with cooks from the dining hall. They were often Chinese and allowed to go to San Francisco on their days off. Detainees secretly passed questions to the cooks, who visited family members in the city to get answers. The cooks would return with the answers, written on little slips of paper and tucked in a banana, under an orange peel or hidden between a plate and a tray.

Dale Ching was the actual son of an American citizen, and yet he was detained for three months because of a discrepancy to a single question in his interrogation: Was the ladder to his family’s sleeping loft in China attached to the house or could it be moved? Ching said it was attached. His uncle had said it was movable.

“They had detached the ladder after the uncle moved to America,” Dexter-Lee explains. “They were both telling the truth and were truly related but failed because of this discrepancy.”

After three months, Ching was finally released. He never wanted to set foot on Angel Island again. But decades later, his grandchildren learned of his history and bought him a ticket to accompany them to Angel Island.

“They went on a tour and there were kids on the tour,” Dexter-Lee says. “He asked some

of the kids what they learned. But the kids were just excited about taking the boat and going on a field trip.”

Ching realized if children were going to really connect to the stories of Angel Island, they needed to hear from someone who had actually passed through. Soon after his visit, he began giving tours at Angel Island once a week for the rest of his healthy life.

“He’d show people where his bed was. He’d show a group of kids, ‘Look, I slept here,’” Dexter-Lee says. “That’s so much more powerful for children.”

The immigration center closed after a fire severely damaged the site in 1940. But it soon became a holding place for prisoners during World War II, when 600 Japanese-Americans were taken from their families and sent to the haunted wooden house on the hill.

By 1970, the state had reopened Angel Island as a park, with plans to burn what was left of the old immigration buildings. Those plans changed when a park ranger, Alex Weiss, took some kids on a field trip, and they noticed all the writing carved into the barracks’ old walls. The students went back and told their families. Many of those families knew of Angel Island. Some knew it only too well.

“For many of those students, it was their parents’ first time telling their kids they were detained here,” Dexter-Lee says. “The students started a movement to save this building and turn it into a museum. Overnight, this went from an old abandoned building to one of our most significant cultural resources.

“It’s a common cliche to say, ‘if the walls could talk.’ At this site, the walls are speaking of the people who experienced this. And they saved the building. Because the detained immigrants wrote on the walls, this building was not burned down. And now we have an opportunity to learn from their experience.”

Top left: Chinese women and children under 12 were held together at Angel Island Immigration Station.

COURTESY OF THE CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Bottom left: Clothing typical of what immigrants brought with them are displayed in the women’s detention barracks.

RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF

Bottom right: Detainees pose outside the hospital at Angel Island in 1923.

COURTESY OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPH FILE

And Oakland’s is a wonderland of fun

BY JOHN METCALFE

Ah, Oakland Chinatown: one of the oldest in North America and a waypoint for luminaries as diverse as Amy Tan, Bruce Lee and Feng Ru, the West Coast’s first pilot. And despite the pandemic’s best efforts, the neighborhood is still a great place to explore. Here are five things to experience the next time you’re around.

OAKLAND FORTUNE FACTORY

This family-run bakery dates back to 1957 and still uses its original recipe. But the factory is not in the business of making strictly traditional fortune cookies. Their cookies are decadent and super colorful. They can be as large as summer melons, and as for the fortunes hidden inside, forget mysterious stranger forecasts. These fortune cookies hold meaningful and socially relevant messages. The cookies are handmade daily and can be customized to your liking. Want one flavored with natural fruit oils like peach, strawberry and pineapple? Dipped in Swiss white or Belgian dark chocolate, then bedazzled with silver crystals or birthday sprinkles? Done and done. There’s a

Oakland Fortune Cookie Factory co-owner

Alicia Wong, opposite right, makes large, custom fortune cookies as well as colorful, smaller versions dipped in chocolate and sprinkles.

LEFT: JANE TYSKA/ STAFF ARCHIVE

OPPOSITE RIGHT: WANGYUXUAN XU/ STAFF

jumbo variety that weighs half a pound, vegan varieties and a Year of the Dragon one that’s hand-stenciled in gold and takes up to five days to make.

You can write a personal fortune to surprise your friends or your betrothed or go with some

of the factory’s timely inclusions, which over the years have included quotations from civil rights leaders in the LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter movements.

Details: Open from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on weekdays at 261 12th St. in Oakland;

The Oakland Asian Cultural Center hosts various special events, including a Lunar New Year celebration with more than a dozen performances.

MANNY CRISOSTOMO/ STAFF ARCHIVES

oaklandfortunefactory.com. Factory tours are available by appointment and typically aimed toward K-12 students and youth programs.

OAKLAND ASIAN CULTURAL CENTER

Where can you go to take calligraphy classes, see a film about Cambodian queer identity and attend a fireside chat about how K-drama can change your life?

The OACC, of course, which has put on such creative events since its founding in 1984.

The center has held release parties for books by local celebrity chef Tu David Phu and Tyrus Wong, a Chinese-American animator who created indelible scenes for “Bambi.” It has staged performances about Pasifika Futurism and the precolonial music of the Tausug and Kalinga Philippine ethnolinguistic groups. It curated art shows

about the Asian community’s power in civic engagement and the violence against Indigenous women. And that was just in 2024 — the schedule in 2025 is likely to be just as exciting.

The center is also a great spot for anyone to hone their skills in Asian-themed arts. There are weekly cultural classes on crafts like Chinese painting and Japanese flower-arranging, meditative exercises like qigong and tai chi and even a workshop on how to mend your clothes with a speed-weave loom. It’s never boring here — check the schedule and head on over for some self-improvement.

Details: Open from noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and by appointment at 388 Ninth St., Suite 290, Oakland; oacc.cc.

PEONY SEAFOOD RESTAURANT

Peony is the kind of grand Chinese banquet hall you might find in New York or Chicago. Among its delights are a wall of live-seafood tanks — with crabs that would rank 4.0 on the “Pacific Rim” kaiju scale — and unusual dishes you won’t find elsewhere in Oakland and the chance to order dim sum, not just for brunch but dinner, too.

The kitchen boasts chefs from Hong Kong who come in with fascinating, artful presentations. Manila clams and sweet eggplant are hidden beneath a pyramid of crispy vermicelli noodles. “Curated custard tofu” looks like a colony of savory, caramelized

abalones arranged around a fresh nest of pea shoots. The dim sum can be straightforward and tasty or leaning toward the luxurious, with abalone (real this time) in lotus-wrapped sticky rice and pork buns with fish roe and Iberico pork.

Your Instagram friends will appreciate Peony’s devotion to keeping things cute. The roasted-duck puffs are sculpted into swans and the mango-jelly dessert molded into little piggies — adorable and jiggly, like a Moo Deng you’d put in your mouth.

Details: Open for lunch and dinner Wednesday-Monday at 388 Ninth St., Suite 288, Oakland; peonyrestaurant. com.

UC DESSERT

Sno-balls, shave ice, granita and Slurpees — many cultures have their own versions of everybody’s favorite treat that’s fun to eat, ice. In Hong Kong, one version is bingsu or bingsoo, a Korean dessert that stands out for its supremely fine-grain ice (or milk) and toppings that range from nostalgic cereal to actually healthy things.

UC Dessert is a small operation that specializes in bingsoo and Hong Kong-style desserts. The UC in the name is not University of California but “you see,” and the desserts are indeed worth ogling. The bingsoo has ice shaved so delicately, the texture is almost creamy. Start with a base flavor such as mango-sago, matcha-red bean, fresh strawberry or black tea, then customize it with a fleet of condiments, including coconut sauce, Frosted Flakes, fruit syrup and tapioca pearls. The sweet, snowy bowls easily feed two people. And if you’re not in the

Creativity abounds in the dishes at Oakland’s Peony Seafood Restaurant, from the steamed custard buns, top, to the shrimp dumplings with ginseng dip, left, and the swanlike roasted duck puffs. ARIC CRABB/STAFF

mood for something cold, there are handmade taro balls with fresh fruit and wafflelike crispy egg puffs.

Details: Open from noon to 10 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday-Sunday at 388 Ninth St., Suite 159, Oakland; ucdessert.com

OAKLAND MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA

Where to begin with the treasures of OMCA? The museum sits right on the Chinatown border and is home to the recently renovated Gallery of California Natural Sciences, filled with immersive taxidermy habitats, microscopes to peep through and a killer Nature Playspace for kids. There’s the massive

Left: UC Dessert’s bingsoo, a Korean treat, tops supremely fine-grained ice (or iced milk) with everything from strawberries to mango or Oreo crumbles.

ARIC CRABB/STAFF

Below: The Ong Dance Company performs a Korean drum dance during the 14th annual Lunar New Year Celebration at the Oakland Museum of California.

ARIC CRABB/STAFF ARCHIVES

collection of historical California artifacts that recalls a World’s Fair in its variety and scale and a permanent arts collection of heavy-hitters like Dorothea Lange, Albert Bierstadt and Richard Diebenkorn — and a relatively new exhibit devoted to the Black Power movement, reflecting the museum’s place in Oakland.

The special exhibits are always eye-opening. In 2024, there were shows devoted to the art of Xicanx peoples and photographs of modern Indigenous culture in California. The sprawling outdoor garden is a work of art in itself, with curious sculptures peeping around every turn, as are the Southern plates put out by chef Michele McQueen at the museum cafe, Town Fare. (The line for brunch is notorious.) And if you’re in the mood to party, show up on Friday nights from April to October for Off the Grid food truck bashes, featuring live music and tasty bites from all corners of the world.

Details: Open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday at 1000 Oak St. in Oakland; museumca.org.

Native American photographer makes his subjects his collaborators

STORY BY MARTHA ROSS

PHOTOS BY RAY CHAVEZ

As a Native American photographer, the late Dugan Aguilar loved nothing more than to show Native American faces. “I see beauty in people,” he once said.

And for Aguilar, who devoted more than 40 years to photographing Native Americans in his home state of California, it was especially important for the people he portrayed to feel like collaborators.

This generosity of spirit is evident in his many stunning black-and-white portraits of Indigenous people on display in “Born of the Bear Dance: Dugan Aguilar’s Photographs of Native California.” The retrospective, currently on display at the Oakland Museum of California, continues through June 22.

As the exhibit emphasizes, Aguilar’s collaborative approach has significant cultural implica-

tions, given that Native Americans have a long, painful history of being exploited by white people’s cameras. Aguilar, who died in 2018 at age 71, never saw himself as “taking” photos, the exhibit explains. He was “receiving” a gift from those participating in his images.

And in one notable case, his approach proved crucial to creating some of the more striking portraits in the show. In 1995, he found himself in a technical bind while documenting the Big Time Celebration at Chaw’se, otherwise known as Indian Grinding Rock Historic Park, near Jackson in the Sierra foothills. He wanted to do a series of portraits of women and men in front of the roundhouse, with most of the seven wearing ceremonial clothing adorned with intricate traditional beading and feathers.

But Aguilar was down to his last roll of film. In a pre-digital age that meant that pretty much every shot had to be perfect,

Top right: Portraits of Native Americans by photographer Dugan Aguilar are part of the “Born of the Bear Dance” retrospective at the Oakland Museum of California.

Bottom right: Aguilar always gave prints to the people he photographed, and often received cultural gifts, such as these beaded feathers, in appreciation.

a feat that many professional photographers would find pretty daunting.

The exhibit’s signage has Aguilar’s explanation of how he dealt with the challenge: He approached the seven, including a woman with her baby, and told them he had an upcoming show at UC Davis, one of the schools where he studied photography after serving in Vietnam.

“If you guys are willing to help me, I would like to see if I can get an image or two for the show,’” he said. “What surprised me is that out of one roll of film, all of the photographs were

good. I am happy if I can get one image from a roll.”

Drew Johnson, the Oakland museum’s curator of photography and visual culture, marvels at the artistry visible in the nearly 30-year-old images, saying that Aguilar couldn’t have created them unless each person felt totally comfortable with him.

In each photo, the person looks straight into his camera with a sense of peace, pride and self-possession. In “Sarah Keller, Chaw’se Roundhouse,” a young woman, with a fur headpiece and beads partially covering her eyes, stands with her chin raised and her mouth curved into a smile, as if she and Aguilar are sharing a moment of recognition and joy.

Aguilar’s son, Dustin Aguilar, agreed that his father had a unique ability to make anyone feel at ease – “like in a minute.” He loves how the photos are imbued with his father’s “quiet energy.” Aguilar himself said each photograph takes on a “spirit or feeling,” and he liked his to be “quiet and peaceful.”

The photos from the Chaw’se celebration are just a sliver of the Oakland museum show, which itself is drawn from a vast trove of 25,000 negatives, prints and transparencies that Aguilar produced from 1982 until his death.

When Aguilar’s family donated his archive to the Oakland museum in 2022, their gift became “one of most important photographic acquisitions by the museum in many years,” Johnson said.

The photos document a variety of contemporary Native American experiences throughout California from a Native American point of view. They show individuals and families

Right: Native American photographer

Dugan Aguilar spent 40 years capturing the faces and culture of his community.

participating in ceremonies, sharing their pride in basket weaving and other arts, interacting with their natural landscapes or otherwise going about their lives.

“It’s like the Indians of California don’t exist in the minds of most people, and I want to set the record straight,” the exhibit quotes Aguilar as having said.

In certain ways, Aguilar was at the forefront of a growing movement among Native American visual artists, writers and filmmakers, who are creating opportunities to tell their own stories. From the 19th century on, white academics, documentarians and Hollywood filmmakers usually recorded images of real or fictional Indians in order to hold them up as exotic others or people to be studied, feared or pitied in some “tragic, antiquated narrative,” Johnson added.

Aguilar’s own background afforded him unique access. Born in Susanville, east of Mount Lassen, Aguilar was of Mountain Maidu, Pit River and Walker River ancestry. He grew up attending Native American ceremonies, including the annual Bear Dance, a spring ceremony celebrating renewal which inspired the name of this exhibition.

But Aguilar also felt the weight of Native people’s history in America, carrying “the general traumas of genocide and cultural loss,” his cousin Chag Lowry wrote in the Smithsonian’s American Indian Magazine. Among other things, Aguilar’s parents survived Indian boarding schools, one of the systems used by the federal and state governments to push for Native people to be displaced, exterminated or culturally assimilated in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Far left: “Born of the Bear Dance: Dugan Aguilar’s Photographs of Native California” will be on display at OMCA through June 22.

Near left: Native American photographer Dugan Aguilar, kneeling at left, always presented large matted prints of his stunning photographs to their subjects.

Aguilar’s other pain came from his service in Vietnam, which left him suffering from the lifelong complications of PTSD and exposure to Agent Orange, his family said. In the final years of his life, he struggled with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.

Before Aguilar thought about becoming a photographer, he followed a family tradition in 1968. His father and uncles were highly decorated veterans from World War II and the Korean War. But Aguilar’s war was in Vietnam, and Dustin Aguilar believes his father enlisted in the Marines because he expected to be drafted anyway.

While Aguilar remained proud of his connections to other veterans, he rarely spoke about his wartime experiences. Dustin Aguilar speculates that his father coped with his trauma by trying to maintain a serene exterior. Lowry believes he found healing through photography.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in industrial technology and design from CSU Fresno, Aguilar discovered his talent with cameras while taking a class at the University of Nevada in Reno, taught by a former assistant of celebrated California landscape photographer Ansel Adams.

Like many artists, Aguilar had to get a day job; his was working in the graphics department at the Sacramento Bee. As he and his wife, Liz, raised a family in Elk Grove, he took pride in being a hands-on father.

But every chance he got, Aguilar pursued what became his life’s work – documenting the contemporary lives of his fellow Native Californians – a rich subject, given that the state encompasses the traditional

homelands of more than 100 different tribes.

Dustin Aguilar said that family vacations often involved road trips to places where his father could do some photography. Aguilar became a familiar figure at Native American events around the state. He photographed Maidu, Yurok and Karuk ceremonies and the annual reunion of Indian veterans from Susanville, his hometown. Sometimes he was the only photographer permitted into sacred spaces. He also became the official photographer for the California Indian Basketweavers Association and spoke about a spiritual link between the patience of basket making and his work in the darkroom, coaxing an image out of film.

Some of his images show Native people with one foot in their traditions and another in mainstream American culture. In “Cousin Fred, Truckee,” a young, leather-clad Native man rides a motorcycle like a modern-day warrior, with his long hair blowing behind him. In another, a female member of the Robinson Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians poses in front of highrises along the Sacramento River while dressed in ceremonial regalia.

As Aguilar developed his photos, he also prepared large, matted versions that he presented to people he photographed, including those at the 1995 Chaw’se celebration. The gesture was in keeping with traditional Indigenous systems of mutual respect and reciprocity.

“I’m honored to have gained the trust of the Indian community,” he said. “Every day, I learn something new about my culture and my people. It’s a gift.”

in the Marines in the Vietnam War. His father and uncles served in the military during World War II.

of a baby in a cradleboard by Native American photographer Dugan Aguilar.

Above: Native American photographer Dugan Aguilar served

Portrait

The long upward trek for Black people here took place in Richmond, the Fillmore District and Bayview-Hunters Point

STORY BY MARTHA ROSS

ILLUSTRATION BY KINGSLEY NEBECHI

In the early 1940s, Black teenagers living in the South wouldn’t be given a watch or a typewriter when they graduated from high school. Instead, they’d get a bus or train ticket headed West to destinations including the San Francisco Bay Area, says historian Shirley Anne Moore in the 2020 documentary, “Homefront Heroes.” Arriving in Richmond, Oakland or San Francisco, they could find work in the World War II shipyards, which were seen as a chance for a better life, free of the poverty, discrimination and threats of violence that were a daily reality for many African Americans in the Jim Crow South.

“We all thought we could make money working in the shipyards,” the late Mary Lee “Peace” Head says in the documentary. The Louisiana native migrated to California after her husband, Leroy Head, enlisted in the Navy and was posted at Treasure Island. Head became a female welder in the Rich-

mond shipyards. After the war, Head and her husband settled in Richmond and raised their four children there. She was a well-known local activist before she died in 2017 at age 94.

Mary Lee and Leroy Head were among the more than four million Black people who left the South as part of the Second Great Migration between 1940 and 1970. In cities in the West and North, they found opportunities for skilled jobs, decent wages on par with their white counterparts and access to education for their children. This internal exodus transformed American culture as well as local communities and economies.

These transplants created thriving Black neighborhoods and institutions across the Bay Area. A large mural at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Park in Richmond shows the 1940s bustle along Macdonald Avenue in that city’s Iron Triangle neighborhood. In its heyday, Macdonald Avenue was lined with clothing stores, banks, nightclubs, restaurants, bars, pool rooms, movie theaters and even upscale fur

and perfume shops. By 1960, the neighborhood was 60 percent Black.

Meanwhile, the Fillmore District in San Francisco became known as the “Harlem of the West,” boasting a famous music scene that featured such acts as Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Lionel Hampton, Redd Foxx, Charlie Parker, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Miles Davis.

But even as their social, political and economic influence grew, Black Bay Area communities faced challenges. Discrimination in housing persisted for decades. They were pushed out of their historic neighborhoods by urban renewal, gentrification and the increasing cost of living.

“White flight” and concerns about “urban blight” also contributed to the decimation of communities. Richmond’s once-thriving Iron Triangle, for example, became a focus for the city’s 1990s reputation for poverty, gangs and record-high homicide rates.

It’s fair to say that some of these historic communities don’t hum like they used to. But enterprising locals are determined to keep alive traditions of art, history and social justice. In

Richmond, city and community leaders are pushing for a new renaissance with a Richmond Arts Corridor running along the length of Macdonald Avenue and anchored by venerable institutions.

One such is the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in the Iron Triangle, which provides free arts education to local children and teens. The nonprofit center speaks to the resilience of the community. It began in a church basement in 1968, spurred by civil rights ideals of racial reconciliation and social change. Even as many businesses abandoned the Iron Triangle, the center thrived in a historic 1928 building, located at 11th Street and Macdonald, the neighborhood’s main intersection.

After a two-year, $16 million renovation in 2011, the center boasts state-of-the-art classrooms, rehearsal spaces and two theaters, where classes run six days a week. Kids can take everything from classical music lessons and ballet to theater and West African drumming. There are group and private classes in jazz, piano, hip-hop and Mexican dance, a nod to the Iron Triangle’s influx of Latino residents.

Alums who have gone on to enjoy successful careers in performance and other professions include Jamar Welch, a hip-hop dancer who has performed with Madonna, Usher, Ginuwine and Timbaland. His playwright mother first brought him to the center at age 9. After he saw a male ballet dancer doing spins in a class, he says, “I knew I wanted to be a dancer.”

After 13 years in Los Angeles, Welch has returned to Richmond and teaches youth hip-

Jazz pianist Sam Peoples walks past a mural of Jumbo Edwards, a jazz musician popular in Fillmore jazz clubs, outside San Francisco’s Boom Boom Room last year.

PHILIP PACHECO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

hop classes, in between publishing poetry and booking gigs at Yoshi’s jazz club in Oakland and other venues.

“The doors are always open,” Welch says. “I’m like the prodigal son.”

The center, however, has never seen itself as just training future performers. Its faculty members want to help students learn to make their way in the world and become leaders, using art to bring about positive social change.

Photographer Bryan Shih discusses his work in the Great Hall during a media preview of the 2016 “All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50” exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California.

JANE TYSKA/STAFF ARCHIVES

“It’s teaching the kids life skills,” says Kwesi Anku, the director of student development and training. Ruthie Dineen, the center’s executive director, adds: “Art is culture. Culture is humanity. Humanity is healing.”

The rich cultural history and contributions of Black Americans can be experienced at museums and institutions around the Bay Area. But here are just a few places to explore the neighborhoods where so much of this history began.

Ford Assembly building. During the war, the Kaiser shipyards attracted tens of thousands of workers of all races and backgrounds to this then-semi-rural bayside community, quintupling its population and transforming it into an industrial boomtown of more than 90,000.

ROSIE THE RIVETER WORLD WAR II HOME FRONT NATIONAL PARK

Richmond

The Visitor Education Center at the Rosie the Riveter national park focuses on the World War II years, which brought so many Black people to Richmond and other Bay Area cities.

The center is housed in a picturesque, brick auxiliary building overlooking San Francisco Bay, next to the restored

The visitor center features permanent and temporary exhibits about the city’s wartime industries and its workers, with a particular effort to honor the contributions of Black Americans and women, the so-called Rosie the Riveters. You can see the “Homefront Heroes” documentary here, too. The center is part of the larger national park, which stretches along San Francisco Bay and encompasses portions of the Bay Trail, the Rosie the Riveter Memorial in Marina Park, the historic Kaiser Shipyard No. 3 and the SS Red Oak Victory ship.

Details: Open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at 1414 Harbour Way South, Suite 3000, Richmond, www.nps.gov/rori/.

RICHMOND ART CENTER

The proposed arts corridor for Macdonald Avenue would start just east of the Civic Center, which is the home of the Rich-

A visitor tours the Great Hall during the Oakland Museum of California’s 2016 exhibit, “All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50.”

JANE TYSKA/ STAFF ARCHIVES

mond Art Center. What began as a community studio workshop in 1936 has expanded over the decades to include classes and ambitious special programs and exhibitions.

Past programs have included a panel discussion last year with children of the Black Panther Party sharing their stories about growing up in a revolutionary movement that changed history. The museum also hosts an annual Art of the African Diaspora exhibition, the longest-running event of its kind in the Bay Area, which will showcase the work of more than 150 artists of African descent beginning Jan. 22.

Details: Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday at 2540 Barrett Ave. in Richmond; https:// richmondartcenter.org/.

IN THE BLACK AND SHEBA PIANO LOUNGE Fillmore District

The glory days of San Francisco’s Fillmore District as the “Harlem of the West” may be long gone, but some enterprising Black business owners are doing what they can to retain a sense of African-American identity in the neighborhood, a

subset of the Western Addition which extends across Geary Boulevard to the edge of tony Pacific Heights.

“We’re just trying to make sure our presence is here,” says Pia Harris, a longtime Western Addition resident and the chief economic development officer at the San Francisco Housing and Development Corporation. “Believe it or not, people don’t believe that Black people live in San Francisco. Yes, we’re still here.”

Harris’ words echo the plot of “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.” The protagonist of the acclaimed 2019 indie film is Jimmie, a resident of Bayview-Hunters Point, the other historic Black neighborhood where about 22 percent of the city’s Black residents still live. Jimmie regularly travels to the Fillmore to gaze upon a regal-looking Victorian that once belonged to his grandfather but is now occupied by a white couple. The film follows Jimmie as he hatches a plan to take the house back, when it goes up for sale. But, of course, there’s no way a guy like Jimmie can afford even a closet in the gentrifying Fillmore. (That movie is available to stream on Max and Apple TV, by the way.)

Two years ago, Harris opened a nonprofit store, In the Black, which gives Black artisans and designers a brick-and-mortar location from which to sell their unique clothing, jewelry, homewares and beauty products.

The store occupies a light, airy 1,500-square-foot space, just south of Geary Boulevard and below the iconic Fillmore Auditorium. Harris appreciates that the storefront used to be a check-cashing and payday loan business, which used to be “so predatory to our community.” She and her fellow entrepreneurs have turned the space into what they hope will provide

opportunities “for community engagement, wealth building and prosperity.”

Center, a massive-mixed use building that was supposed to revive the neighborhood. But Yoshi’s struggled, and a bankruptcy and a series of other financial disasters involving the city’s Redevelopment Agency led to the club pulling out of San Francisco in 2014.

As the city struggles after a decade to find a viable new tenant, the Sheba Piano Lounge and The Boom Boom Room are trying to keep the Fillmore music tradition alive. The former is a cozy, classy venue that serves up Ethiopian cuisine and jazz music five nights a week. The owner is Netsanet Alemayehu, a longtime restaurateur and the widow of the late impresario Agonafer Shiferaw, who ran Fillmore’s famed Rasselas Jazz Club from 1986 to 2013. If you’re lucky, you can get seats on a sofa near the fireplace, tuck into spicy African lentils and admire the decor, which feels inspired by an ancient Ethiopian palace. Venture eight miles south to Bayview-Hunters Point, and you’ll find several Black-owned businesses trying to maintain a beachhead there, as the neighborhood’s blocks of classic, San Francisco-style houses become targets for affluent professionals. Some of the best soul food you’ll find in the Bay Area is served at Social Gumbo, which opened in 2023. Chef Dontaye Ball grew up eating gumbo at his grandmother’s house in the Fillmore, and his version brims with chicken, andouille and okra.

JANE

TYSKA/STAFF ARCHIVES

In 1995, the city established the Historic Fillmore Jazz Preservation District and in 2007 made Yoshi’s, the famed Oakland jazz club, its primary tenant in the Fillmore Heritage

Details: In the Black is open WednesdaySunday, with varying afternoon and early evening hours, at 1567 Fillmore St. in San Francisco; https://intheblackshop. com. Sheba Piano Lounge opens at 5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday — the music starts at 7:30 p.m. — at 1419 Fillmore St.; www.shebapianolounge.com. And Social Gumbo is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday at 5176 Third St.; www.gumbosocial.com.

Willa Thomas, one of the original Rosie the Riveters, listened intently during the annual Rosie Rally Home Front Festival at Richmond’s Craneway Pavilion in 2019. The Visitor Education Center at the Rosie the Riveter national park focuses on the World War II years, which brought many Black people to Richmond and other Bay Area cities.

Black history, culture and achievements are on proud display around the Bay

Bay Area museums and libraries offer myriad ways to explore Black history and culture, from contemporary art to protest movements. Here’s just a sampling.

AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM AND LIBRARY Oakland

Housed in Oakland’s former main library, this special reference library is home to 16,000 books by or about African Americans, 70,000 photographs, a rare book collection and an archive of 160 special collections.

“It’s a repository for African American history,” says library assistant Marco Frazier.

In the 1940s, efforts began to collect oral histories and artifacts about African Americans in the Bay Area. The growing collection moved to the Oakland Public Library’s Golden Gate branch in the 1980s and then a public-private partnership with the Northern California Center for Afro-American History in the 1990s.

The museum’s current “Visions Toward Tomorrow” exhibit upstairs highlights the history of African American communities in Oakland. But on a recent

weekend, the space was taken over by a tribute to Black doll artists. It’s an annual event founded by Karen Oyekanmi, who created the American Black Beauty Doll Association in 1984 to create Black dolls in a positive image for children of color.

Details: Open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday and Saturday, and from noon to 5:30 p.m. Friday. Frazier offers museum tours at noon on Saturday or by appointment. 659 14th St., Oakland; oaklandlibrary.org/aamlo

BLACK PANTHER PARTY MINI MUSEUM

West Oakland

In the summer of 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, West Oakland resident Jil Vest felt bombarded by the many murals depicting violence committed against Black people.

“I’m not going to paint pictures of what’s being done to Black people. I want to paint pictures of what Black people do,” she remembers thinking. So she launched the West

Exhibits at Oakland’s African American Museum and Library include a Festival of Black Dolls show and sale organized by the American Black Beauty Doll Association.

RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF

Oakland Mural Project, using the side of her home as a canvas for an image celebrating the women of the Black Panther Party.

And when her downstairs tenants moved out in 2021, she converted the whole first floor into a museum about the Black Panther Party and its accomplishments.

“History is supposed to be the study of what people did,” she says. “Oftentimes, as Black people in America, we have been taught that our history is the study of what was done to us. If this were a museum filled with what was done to the Black Panther Party, you would leave devastated. I don’t want that energy in my house.”

Instead, the message her museum delivers is inspired by the achievements of the party, that “18- and 19-yearold young men and women can feed children, take care of elders, open clinics and pre-

and post-natal care, create free ambulance programs and give children eyeglasses.”

“This project has accomplished exactly what I set out to accomplish,” she says. “Instead of looking at images that cause your shoulders to curl forward, we’re looking at this beautiful image that causes your shoulders to go back.”

Details: Open by appointment — text 646-306-7175 — at 831 Center St., Oakland. Looking to learn more about Black history in West Oakland? Vest suggests taking a Black Liberation Walking Tour; learn more at https://www. blwt.org/tours.

DOMINI HOSKINS BLACK HISTORY AND LEARNING CENTER

Redwood City

This museum found a permanent home in Redwood City

last January. But its origin dates back nearly 25 years, when young Domini Hoskins, then a student at Belmont’s Central Elementary School, was dreading having to write yet another Black History Month essay about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Aren’t there any other famous Black people?” he asked his grandmother, Carolyn. Carolyn recalls being taken aback and trying to explain to her grandson that the rich histo-

Elena Gross, from the Museum of the African Diaspora, discusses David Huffman’s “Sideshow,” which was part of a Terra Incognita exhibit in 2022.

KARL MONDON/ STAFF ARCHIVES

ry of African American achievement in the U.S. isn’t something that can be compressed into just one month a year or limited to Dr. King, Rosa Parks or Malcolm X. So they started learning together.

Today, the Domini collection fills 22,000 square feet of museum space, its historic and contemporary artifacts a celebration of Black excellence. You’ll find displays celebrating African American inventors,

Visitors admire the display during last November’s Festival of Black Dolls show at the museum and library. The event featured workshops and displays highlighting artistic dolls of color.

RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF

such as George Crum, inventor of the potato chip. There are NFL jerseys from famous athletes, records by celebrated musicians and memorabilia from historic political victories, including President Barack Obama’s election.

Details: Open from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and until 5 p.m. Sunday at 890 Jefferson Ave, Redwood City; hoskinsblackhistorymuseum.org.

MUSEUM OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

San Francisco

There’s contemporary art ... and then there’s 20-year-old MoAD, where much of the art on display was created last year. This peaceful space in San Francisco’s museum district is home to rotating, thought-provoking exhibits, such as “Liberatory Living: Protective Interiors and Radical Black Joy,” a collection

of furnishings and artworks by 16 designers and artists on display through March 2.

Details: Open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday at 685 Mission St., San Francisco; https://www.moadsf.org.

BLACK PANTHER PARTY MUSEUM

Oakland

The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation opened this museum last January in a prime downtown location. The collection includes striking portraits of former Black Panther Party members from chapters around the U.S. paired with personal essays and reflections about their time with the party. Read more about this museum on page 11.

Details: Free. Open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday

A montage display of sepia-toned portraits greets visitors to the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco.

KARL MONDON/ STAFF ARCHIVES

at 1427 Broadway, Oakland; hueypnewtonfoundation.org/blackpanther-party-museum.

SILICON VALLEY

AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER

In the works, expected to open in 2027.

A Santa Clara County center for African American culture is expected to break ground this year and open in 2027. Helmed by project director Walter Wilson and supported with Measure A and state and federal funding, the Silicon Valley African American Culture Center proposal includes plans for a community hub, affordable housing and retail. A museum? Cultural exhibits? Music? We shall see.

Details: Expected to open in 2027 at 2100 The Alameda in San Jose; svafricanamericanculturalcenter.org.

Oakland’s Fruitvale Public Market is a gateway to Mexico — no border crossing needed

STORY BY SIERRA LOPEZ

PHOTOS BY RAY CHAVEZ

Spanish music blares, crowds bustle and the aroma of savory and sweet treats wafts into every corner of Oakland’s Fruitvale Public Market, a space offering Latin American finds curated by small entrepreneurs for more than two decades.

Open on weekdays, in the heart of Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, the 7,000-squarefoot space is home to small businesses offering authentic Latino delights that range from tacos, sweet breads and fresh fruit to candies, churros, beaded jewelry and clothing.

There’s Tacos El Ultimo Baile, where those tortillas are filled with asada, pastor, carnitas, pollo, fish, shrimp and more, with chopped onions and salsas at the ready.

Across the way in the courtyard, the Churros Mexicanos stand sells the fried treats filled with chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, caramel or cajeta, a tra-

ditional Mexican caramel made with sweetened goat milk.

Similar community spaces reflect the vibrancy of Latino culture across the Bay Area, where Latino and Hispanic people have lived since the days of Alta California in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Today, more than 1.3 million Latinos — about 19 percent of the region’s population — call the Bay Area home, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.

That heritage resonates in every city. In San Jose, for example, the Mexican Heritage Plaza — Centro Cultural de San José — is a community hub and gathering place that celebrates Chicano history, art and culture. Latino restaurants, food trucks and eateries dot San Francisco’s Mission District, Richmond’s 23rd Street and Concord, which has so many taquerias — nearly 40 — the city declared its own Taco Trail.

And then there’s Oakland’s

Above: Above: Kimberly Gomez, 2, enjoys a strawberry ice cream as her father, Raymundo, waits for his own scoop at the Nieves 5 de Mayo ice cream shop at Oakland’s Fruitvale Public Market.

Opposite: Luis Abundis runs Nieves 5 de Mayo with his wife, Elizabeth Alcala, left, and daughter Emily Abundis and official agua fresca taster, 4-year-old Karshawn Brown Abundis.

Fruitvale, a predominantly Latino district where the Chicano Movement blossomed in the 1960s and ’70s, and Latin American culture still thrives today. And the public market at 3341 E. 12th St. is not just a place to shop, it’s a destination.

For the last decade, Carlos Castillo and Erma Ramirez have made the trek from Concord to the market as often as they can, driving up to an hour or catching a BART train each way. Their order each time? A churro and a cup of tejuino, a traditional Mexican drink made of fermented corn, lime and spices and served cold.

The zesty sweet beverage can be found throughout the Bay Area, but no one does it like Nieves Cinco de Mayo, Castillo says.

“I can go anywhere around here for tacos, but no one does tejuino like here,” he says. “It’s like going to Mexico without crossing the border.”

Luis Abundis, who owns Nieves Cinco de Mayo with his

wife, Elizabeth, grew up drinking tejuino as a child in Mexico, but it wasn’t until he began operating his ice cream business in Oakland that he perfected the recipe. He sold it from an ice cream truck he operated in the 1980s, out of a now-shuttered pizza shop in the ’90s and roadside for another decade before finding a permanent home in the Fruitvale Public Market in 2007.

Customers can order the vegan-friendly drink straight up or served over a scoop of ice cream. Abundis makes dozens of flavors, everything from guava to rose petals, corn, coconut and burnt milk. And if you’re craving an ice cream sundae, dessert waffle or raspados — shaved ice — this is the place.

“Every business has something different, something special,” Abundis says. “People can come and try a flavor of Mexico.”

Abundis is tight-lipped about the secret ingredients that make his take on tejuino so special. But his daughter, Emily Abundis, says the recipe has been

Norma Romero prepares churros at her popular Fruitvale Public Market stand.

passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years, starting with the Wixárika people of Nayarit, a state along Mexico’s western coast.

“You appreciate it more when you know how old the recipe is,” Emily Abundis says.

The word tejuino comes from the Wixárika’s word for “heartbeat,” tecuin, she notes.

For Emily Abundis, the Fruitvale Public Market has been the heartbeat of her life. She’s spent much of her 24 years here, running around with her two older sisters and working the shop with her parents. Now, she watches as her 4-year-old son has his turn at experiencing the community each merchant has helped build.

“This has been my favorite place. It reminds me of Mexico,” she says. “I never get bored here. I love the community, and everyone is really kind.”

The essence of the community’s commitment to each other is possibly most proudly expressed during the annual Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, celebration, when it’s believed the spirits of those who have passed briefly return to Earth.

The free Fruitvale festival, hosted by the Unity Council with support from dozens of sponsors, is one of the largest in the Bay Area, featuring live music, dancing, food, arts and crafts, rides, games and Aztec rituals. Tens of thousands have attended the festival each year for nearly three decades.

The Mexican holiday, celebrated over a series of days in early November, is known for its decorations, the brightly colored skulls, a plethora of marigolds and altars or ofrendas decorated with photos of dead loved ones with their favorite foods and drinks.

Outside the Fruitvale Public Market during the celebration, you’ll find Oakland’s own ofrenda dedicated to the city’s homicide victims each year. Dozens of names are honored on small wooden crosses and presented to passersby to spread awareness as well as express support for a community in pain.

The ultimate dream, the Abundis say, is to not need the altar.

“We keep doing it, even though it’s sad,” says Luis, who grew emotional thinking of the friends he’s lost to gun violence. “We do it to let people know how many people have been shot or killed.”

Left: Concord residents Irma Ramirez and Carlos Castillo make the drive to Fruitvale Public Market as often as they can to shop the stalls and enjoy an ice-cold tejuino, a refreshing, corn-based drink, they say is the best in the Bay Area.

BY JOHN METCALFE

Some cities have wine trails or art trails. In Concord, where one out of every three residents is Latino, there’s a Taco Trail.

Designated in 2020, the Taco Trail includes nearly 40 taquerias and other eateries that serve Mexican food including, yes, tacos. Most of them are small, family-run operations — “hole in the wall” is a good descriptor — though some get quite fancy, with lobster and Mexican wine.

The city’s annual Taco Trail Challenge dares people to visit as many taquerias as possible each fall, with winners receiving a Golden Taco Trophy. But for newbies, where to begin? Which kitchen serves the best birria, and which excels at carnitas or lengua or vegetarian tacos? How do you say en Español, “Please no, if I eat one more taco, I will surely perish”?

Here are five excellent stop-offs on the Taco Trail. And while you’re exploring, you’ll no doubt stumble on other great places to try. Buen provecho!

PAPI CLARY’S KITCHEN

One of the best renditions of birria in the East Bay comes from a young cook, Claryzza Abille, who actually specializes in Filipino cuisine. The chef ran a buzzy

JANE TYSKA/STAFF

The Pollo Asado, Chicken Al Pastor and Baja Fish tacos, from left, are delicious options at Puesto, part of Concord’s Taco Trail.

backyard pop-up before opening a restaurant with a pared-down menu of slow-cooked beef, spicy fried chicken and specials like lumpia nachos and pork-belly sisig fries.

The birria taco is deeply spiced, meltingly tender and doused in a savory broth that dyes the corn tortilla brick-red ($3.50). For $1.50 more, you can add Monterey Jack pressed into a crispy wafer on the grill — it’s an umami bomb. Even better than the taco is the mulita, a little sandwich of birria, guacamole and soft white cheese between two crunchy tortillas. Sprinkle it with the tomatillo salsa, an orange concoction that packs heat, and wash everything down with purple-ube horchata.

Details: Open 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday at 2186 Solano Way, Concord; 925-222-7786, instagram.com/ papiclaryskitchen

MERCADO DEL SOL

The first thing that hits you upon entering this strip-mall eatery is a cloud of piquant wood smoke. They cook their own barbecue here, and it’s like a factory line of wonderful meats pouring from the kitchen — mahogany baby-back ribs, whole chickens with lacquered skins and the restaurant’s specialty, lamb barbacoa.

That slow-cooked lamb piled onto a taco ($4.25) is a luscious, juicy bite, made all the better

when spiked with the kicked-up salsa roja or milder tomatillo salsa verde. Lamb isn’t something you often find at Bay Area taquerias, and if you keep following the unconventional path, you’ll be rewarded. Mercado del Sol does a variety of offal, and it’s invariably delicious.

The buche or pig stomach ($3.50) is tender and deeply porky, and you can order pig skin in two forms — the crispier chicharron or the superior cueritos, gelatinous pork rinds both chewy and satisfying. For a dessert as stick-to-your-ribs as these tacos, try the champurrado, which is like a comforting hot chocolate made from masa and spices.

Details: Open daily for lunch and dinner at 1450 Monument Blvd., Concord; 925-676-8837

Chef Jose Luis Romero carries a container full of chicharron — fried pork skin — cooked for lunch hour customers at Mercado del Sol in Concord. RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF

Top: Server Francis Rosas delivers dishes of pork ribs and chicken with rice and beans for customers at Mercado del Sol in Concord.

Bottom: Bottom: Angelica Zuniga shapes sopes from masa dough at Concord’s Tortilleria El Molino.

TORTILLERIA EL MOLINO

Molino is like your everyday taqueria with one difference. They have a large-scale operation for making their own corn tortillas — and a silkier, fresher-tasting tortilla you will not find around the Bay. It’s no wonder they ship them all around to grocery stores, where shoppers snatch them up, still warm and steaming in the bags.

The tortilleria has a second outpost in the grocery store around the corner, which is fine but not as popular as the restaurant. You’ll know you’re at the right place by the line out the door of people ordering tacos, tortillas and huge bowls of white pozole and chicken soup.

The tacos are nearly twice the size of most places and anointed simply with onion, cilantro and salsa verde that comes portioned in bags. The cabeza or beef head is tender and nicely spiced, while the carnitas ($3.65) are well-cooked and flecked with tasty bits of pork fat. A surprise hit on the menu are the tacos dorados ($2.69), soft potatoes and ground beef with fresh veggies sandwiched in crispy tortillas. Steak and taters in taco form, who can argue with that?

Details: Open 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday at 1500 Monument Blvd., Concord; tortillaselmolino.com

PUESTO

Puesto was co-founded by San Diego native Eric Adler, whose parents hail from Guadalajara and Monterrey, Mexico, and the original restaurant has since grown into a major California operation. There are locations in San Diego, La Jolla, Anaheim, Santa Clara and even Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara — and this one in The Veranda shopping complex in Concord.

It feels like an upscale restaurant you’d find in Mexico City, with vibrant murals and fresh-fruit margaritas that are works of art in their own right. One taco is filled with Maine lobster ($17), blackbean sauce and crisp-fried onions, and another with filet mignon ($12) and pistachio-serrano salsa. A fantastic bite — whether you eat meat or not — are the Verduras vegetarian tacos ($9), made with nopales and seasonal veggies like zucchini,

RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF

Bartender Embery Torres mixes up a Cadillac Margarita at Concord’s Puesto restaurant.

JANE TYSKA/STAFF

which come with a whole squash blossom with the bracing taste of a zesty lime. The tortillas are made with blue corn and made decadent with a layer of meltedto-a-crisp cheese. Pair it with some of the Mexican-terroir wine the restaurant imports, a Straus ice cream horchata or an agua fresca with a cooling slice of watermelon. Pro tip: Tacos and drinks are discounted on Taco Tuesdays.

Details: Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. SundayThursday and 11 a.m.-10 p.m. FridaySaturday at 2035 Diamond Blvd., Concord; eatpuesto.com.

LOS TACOS DE PANCHO

This small eatery in the Concord Terminal Shopping Center has multiple options. There are fajitas, grilled-fish plates, tortas, prawn enchiladas, wet burritos and something called a “tamal burrito” — and then tacos, of course, in every flavor of the

meat rainbow. Free chips and salsa are a nice way to begin war against a flotilla of tacos. The specialty at Pancho is the Baja fish ($5.25), with wild-caught cod fried in beer batter so light and sweet, it’s almost like funnel cake. The huge taco is finished with herby crema, shredded red cabbage and pico de gallo. Seafood lovers also have the option of grilled tilapia tacos or shrimp tacos drenched in spicy diabla sauce. Among the typical street tacos ($3.75), a standout is the lengua or beef tongue, cooked until soft and succulent with flavors of clove and allspice. The al pastor and carnitas tacos are decent, too, and pair well with a Jarritos from the fridge. Bonus: On Saturday evenings, the parking lot fills up with classic cars from the local cruising club.

Details: Open 10 a.m.-9 p.m. MondaySaturday at 2699 Clayton Road, Concord; lostacosdepancho.com.

Left: Freshly made corn tortillas slowly move down the line at Concord’s beloved Tortilleria El Molino.

RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF

is the music that makes merry, wherever it is played

Area, Rodriguez says, “There’s mariachi out there — in someone’s backyard.”

You’ll also find it played at clubs and theaters, as well as large public gatherings like last summer’s inaugural Silicon Valley Mariachi Festival, which drew crowds last June at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds.

STORY BY JIM HARRINGTON

PHOTOS BY KARL MONDON

Jorge Rodriguez pauses just briefly when asked why he performs mariachi music.

“Initially, it was because it made me happy. It made me forget about the world,” says the San Jose-based trumpet player and leader of Mariachi Estelar. “It became about me wanting to make others happy.”

Centuries after the birth of this regional Mexican music style, which dates back at least to the 1700s, mariachi remains a cultural and artistic force that touches the lives of countless listeners.

That’s certainly true in Northern California, where mariachi music thrives in Mexican-American communities in San Jose, Hayward, Oakland, Vallejo and other cities big and small. On any given weekend in the Bay

“We were not expecting that many guests — 1,500 — because it was the first time,” says Rodriguez, an event co-organizer. Plans are already underway for the festival’s sophomore swing, scheduled for June 15 at the fairgrounds again.

And it’s not the only high-profile mariachi event on the calendar for those warm weather months. The Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose will also host its popular Fiesta del Mariachi on July 26.

Besides underscoring the importance of mariachi in the Bay Area, these festivals also help introduce this beloved music form, typically performed with guitars, violins and trumpets, to younger listeners.

“For younger generations to be exposed to mariachi is very important to me,” says Edgar Ochoa, community engagement director for San Jose’s Mexican Heritage Plaza. “The reality is that some of the younger generation may have no interest in the music, but the option is on the table.”

These organizations’ greatest allies in the quest to spread the love of the art form are, of course, parents, grandparents,

Above: Gabriela Sepulveda sings with Mariachi Estelar at a Dia de Los Muertos event Nov. 2 at Oak Hill Cemetery in San Jose. Top right: Intricate detailing is a major part of mariachi costumes.

aunts, uncles and other relatives who continue to turn to mariachi for the soundtrack to family gatherings and other special occasions.

“We’re pretty much booked every weekend,” says Mariachi Estelar’s Rodriguez, who also runs the Silicon Valley Mariachi Foundation. “When there is a need for a celebration, we are definitely on people’s minds. We bring life to the party.”

You’ll hear mariachi performing at weddings and funerals, baptisms, birthdays, quinceañera and Catholic mass as well as holiday parties.

“We are a part of a lot of people’s lives,” Rodriguez says.

And in a time when the things that divide us often take center stage over the things that unite us, mariachi is one of the precious ways that people from different generations can connect.

“Mariachi is able to bridge the gap between youth and grandparents,” Rodriguez says.

Some may worry about the future of mariachi in the Bay Area and beyond. “Families can’t help but think that the tradition is somehow dying off,” Rodriguez says. “We are so consumed by mainstream media.”

Those concerns serve as a type of rallying cry, though, to the art form’s supporters and purveyors.

“It’s part of our culture,” says Raymundo Coronado, director of the Hayward-based band Mariachi Mexicanismo. “And we need to keep it alive.”

Mariachi is in Coronado’s blood.

“I’m third generation in my family,” he says. “It goes back generations. My father taught me. The instrument that I chose at 7 years old was the trumpet.”

When he was 17, he ventured off to learn about other musical forms — and studied classical music at a conservatory — but was soon drawn back to mariachi.

“It was great to learn classical technique,” he says. “But my heart was with mariachi.”

Coronado says — with all due respect — not all musicians can play mariachi. He says it takes a certain style, a certain sound, to play it correctly.

“You are adding your soul, your heart to it,” he says. “You just have to have it in you to play this type of music.”

And that love of mariachi is what many proponents of the genre are hoping to pass on to younger generations, whether it’s through the music being played in someone’s backyard or a major event like Fiesta del Mariachi or the Silicon Valley Mariachi Festival.

“I’m trying to promote mariachi to the youth and hopefully change the life of one kid,” Rodriguez says. “If I change the life of just one kid, I’ve done my job.”

Mariachi Estelar performs, top, at a Dia de Los Muertos event, with founder Jorge Rodriguez on trumpet, above, at Oak Hill Cemetery in San Jose.

The Desi diaspora has planted deep roots in the Bay Area

BY ISHA TRIVEDI

The lights dim, and a hush falls over the crowd, as the last nawab of Oudh strides onto the stage at Palo Alto’s Cubberley Theater. Or Mother Teresa takes the spotlight. Or 18th-century police chief Ghasiram Kotwal, the star of the Naatak production that will open later this month.

And the rapt crowd? They’re theater-loving Silicon Valley engineers, teachers, parents, friends and colleagues drawn to the fantastical dramas that play out on the Naatak House stage with a cast of hundreds and audiences in the thousands.

Naatak, which means drama or play in Hindi, has staged

theatrical performances for the Bay Area’s South Asian community for nearly 30 years, with an ensemble and audience that have increased tenfold over the years. The biggest Indian theater company in the nation has found its community, and more fans are on their way.

More than a million people of South Asian heritage live in California, a vast diaspora that includes individuals from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, many of whom began arriving in the 20th century. A quarter of that Desi population lives in Santa Clara County, with

The Navarasa Dance Theater troupe performed at a 2023 banquet at the India Community Center in Milpitas.

THIEN-AN

MORE…

Find details and ticket information for Naatak’s 2025 season and stream plays from prior seasons at www.naatak.org.

Learn more about the India Community Center and its programs at www.indiacc.org/.

another quarter divided between Alameda and Contra Costa, their daily lives a testament to the diversity and breadth of the South Asian community. You’ll find engineers, doctors and academics among them and people in every other line of work, too — including the theater.

As the South Asian community has put down roots over the decades, so have the organizations devoted to creating third places — a coinage by sociologist Ray Oldenburg for the places where people can gather, socialize and bond outside work and school.

That’s how Naatak began in 1995, when UC Berkeley and Stanford theater lovers launched their nonprofit.

That was the impetus, too, for the Milpitas-based India Community Center or ICC, which began when a small group of South Bay seniors began looking for a home away from home, a space to chat, to play cards, read and discuss current events. What started in 2003 with a handful of people renting a room in a local church is now a sprawling facility headquartered in Milpitas, with locations across Santa Clara County’s West Valley, the Peninsula and the Tri-Valley.

Though it started as a DIY senior center — and still offers some of those services today — the India Community Center has become a multigenerational

community hub and the largest Indian American community center in North America, with a constituency that ranges, says CEO Manoj Goel, “from 18 months to 100 years old.”

Some 1,400 kids participate in its summer camp programs each year, and after-school options include classes on Bollywood dance, robotics and even Spanish. The center is now a third place, where a new generation of the diaspora has grown up and found its people.

And like Naatak, the ICC is a gem in the region’s Desi community crown. It’s a place where

dignitaries and celebrities from India typically stop when visiting the Bay Area, Goel says.

Naatak’s origin story lies with a group of college students, led by co-founder and artistic director Sujit Saraf, who were looking to bring a culture of theatergoing to the Bay Area’s budding Indian population. To create a space, in other words, for people who had caught the “kida,” or bug, for theater, says Harish Agastya, the nonprofit’s operations director.

When its founding members put on their first production in 1996 — with 15 people on stage

Above: The India Community Center’s 2023 banquet included a Bollywood by Amit and Hiren performance. Amit Pawar and Hiren Pathak teach Bollywood dance classes at the center.

THIEN-AN TRUONG FOR BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

Right: Candles line the India Community Center stage.

SHAE HAMMOND/STAFF

and behind the scenes and 200 in the audience — Naatak was the only theater company of its kind on the scene. Almost three decades later, Naatak is not only the biggest theater company of its kind in the U.S., it has inspired the formation of similar theater ensembles, including the Bay Area Drama Company.

Naatak’s shows have grown as well in intricacy, ambition and size. Staged with a cast and crew of 150, each show draws thousands of attendees. Some plays are Desi takes on classics, like the recent production of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M for Murder.” Others are comedies, such as “The Very First Maru-

ti.” Written by Saraf, it tells the story behind the first Maruti, a popular car in India.

As they head into their 112th production — a music and dance-filled tale of deceit, trickery and violence in 18th-century India — longtime members of Naatak say they’re responding to a basic need from the communi-

Top left: Naatak celebrated Gandhi’s 150th birthday in 2019 with an ambitious musical production in four languages with scores of actors and dancers, including Roshni Datta, seen here in rehearsal.

RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF ARCHIVES

Top right: A Diwali celebration at the India Community Center brought dancers to the stage in November.

SHAE HAMMOND/STAFF

Bottom left: Hari Saini participates with others in a yoga class at India Community Center in Milpitas.

PHOTO BY JIM GENSHEIMER

ty and having fun along the way. And their marketing budget?

“We don’t spend any money on marketing, yet these people find us,” Agastya says. “We even have visiting parents or uncles or cousins from India come to watch Naatak plays who are thrilled to see such a thing exists in the Bay Area, sometimes doing things at a scale not even possible in India.”

Desi people have always had an interest in the arts and culture, Agastya says. They just needed a place to nurture it. That they found community amid the spectacle is a bonus.

Savor the Desi flavors and fun at these five Bay Area spots

BY ISHA TRIVEDI

South Asian food and culture abound in the Bay Area. From Morgan Hill to Oakland, restaurants, markets, dance studios and cricket pitches catering to Desi people are flourishing, and anyone interested in experiencing that culture need only peek inside a nearby Indian grocery store — Patel Brothers, New India Bazar, Apni Mandi — for a taste.

But if you’re looking for something beyond grocery classics, like Amul butter and Haldiram’s salty snacks, we’ve got you covered. Here are five ways to eat, drink and play that will scratch the rich surface of the Bay Area’s South Asian experience.

BOWLS, BATS AND WICKETS

There are two types of people in this world: people who understand how cricket works and people who don’t. Cricket Champs is your opportunity to join the former category.

Pleasanton’s indoor cricket batting facility — the largest of its kind in the country — offers indoor cricket lanes ($70 per hour) and bowling machines ($45). And for the uninitiated, Cricket Champs also sells basic cricket gear, so you can stock up on the iconic red leather balls, heavy wooden bats, gloves and more.

Got a youngster with an interest in the sport? Cricket Champs’ after-school cricket program offers 90 minutes of cricket coaching daily, along with supervised homework time.

Details: Open daily from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. at 7073 Commerce Circle in Pleasanton; cricketchamps.net

The indoor practice lanes at Pleasanton’s Cricket Champs draw eager players of every age.

Top:

Right: San Francisco resident Rohit Singh, left, loads cricket balls into a bowling machine as his family prepares to play at Cricket Champs.

JANE TYSKA/BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

DESI SCOOPS

Pints of Joy isn’t your typical ice cream shop. You’ll find expected flavors, like chocolate and cookies and cream, but you can also find flavors inspired by classic Desi desserts such as gajar halwa, gulab jamun, falooda and more.

The Sunnyvale store is the brainchild of two “mompreneurs,” Ketki Dandekar and Arshiya Shaikh, who started making ice cream as a hobby during the throes of the pandemic.

If you’re new to these flavors and want to sample them all, there’s an ice cream “flight” that features four small scoops. And if you’re looking to avoid dairy or eggs, they can help. All their ice cream is eggless, and they offer an array of vegan options of their regular flavors, including Alphonso mango, guava and blueberry lavender.

Top: Ketki Dandekar and Arshiya Shaikh opened their Sunnyvale scoop shop, Pints of Joy, in 2022, with flavors that include falooda and blueberry lavender, above.

ARIC CRABB/STAFF ARCHIVES

Vaishnavi Mangeshkar, 12, of Livermore, gets pitching tips from Cricket Champs coach Ajay Immadi.

JANE TYSKA/STAFF

MORE DESI FLAVORS

If you’re looking for more restaurants to explore, here are more hot spots.

Check out Zareen’s in Palo Alto, Mountain View or Redwood City for Indian and Pakistani options.

With locations in Pleasanton, San Mateo and at San Jose’s San Pedro Square, Urban Momo serves up fresh momos — Nepalese dumplings — seven days a week.

Curry Pizza House offers Indianinspired pizzas with flavors like palak paneer and achari chicken, as well as classic pies like margarita and pepperoni at locations across the Bay, from Redwood City to Pleasanton, Cupertino and more.

And San Jose’s Sam and Curry offers a fresh take on the fastcasual dining trend with Chipotlestyle bowls using classic Desi ingredients like saag and lentils.

The dish: Bring a buddy and share a flight ($15) of four kid-size scoops of different flavors. Our favorites include Alphonso mango; meetha paan, a sweet digestive wrapped in betel leaves; gulab jamun and blueberry lavender.

The details: Open from 2 to 9 p.m. Monday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. or later Tuesday-Sunday at 717 E. El Camino Real in Sunnyvale; pintsofjoy.com.

MUMBAI-STYLE STREET FOOD

You’ll be hard pressed to find a restaurant as clear on its specialty as Fremont’s Pav Bhaji Hut — it’s in the name.

This street food, which originated in Mumbai, India, pairs soft white bread (pav) — ideally toasted in salty Amul butter — with a vegetarian, tomato and potato-based spiced curry

(bhaji). It’s an irresistible combination, regardless of the time of year or day.

Pav Bhaji Hut serves up the classic with an almost impressive authenticity. Order the regular pav bhaji to try it in its simplest form or opt for cheese pav bhaji if you’re worried about the heat. For an extra-indulgent treat, they also offer an option that’s both spicy and cheesy.

The dish: Go for the classic pav bhaji ($15) — sprinkle it with the lime juice and diced raw onion that comes on the side. You can always go back for an extra side of pav ($5), if you need to soak up any leftover bhaji. Try one of their coldpressed juices or a juice shot to cut the richness of the dish.

Details: Open from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily at 37100A Fremont Blvd. in Fremont; pavbhajihut.com.

CELEBRATE BOLLYWOOD

Some Bay Area theaters offer a handful of screenings of blockbuster Bollywood movies, but Ciné Lounge Fremont 7 takes that much further.

The Fremont movie theater almost exclusively plays movies for South Asian viewers (with English subtitles), and they’re not limited to just Hindi-language films. Screenings range from rereleases of Bollywood classics to movies in languages such as Malaylam, Nepali, Telugu, Tamil and more — with the occasional English movie in the mix.

Ciné Lounge’s concessions booth sells popcorn, candy, soda and other typical fare … and mango lassis, samosas and masala fries, too.

Details: Ticket prices vary, but time your visit for a Tuesday, and you might score an adult ticket for as low as $5.50. Find Ciné Lounge at 39160 Paseo Padre Parkway in Fremont; fremont.cinelounge. com.

Holi and more

Of course, you can’t discuss Desi culture without talking about festivals, too. The Hindu festival of Holi celebrates spring, color and love in an explosion of revelry and music. The traditional throwing of colorful powders — or gulal — into the air turns participants into a rainbow of vivid fuchsia, scarlet and marigold. The Association of Indo Americans will host its big Holi Fest at San Jose’s Discovery Meadow on March 15, with more festivities planned in Fremont, Milpitas and other cities. Diwali, the Festival of Lights, celebrates the power of light over darkness each fall. The Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton typically observes the fiveday holiday with a festival in October that includes Indian food and craft stalls, Bollywood dances and fireworks.

Above, Nidhi Sharma, of Sunnyvale, dances during a Holi festival gathering at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont.

SHAE HAMMOND/STAFF

Near right: Alex Tennoh, left, and Will North, right, welcome a new arrival at the Holi Festival of Colors at Irvington High School in Fremont.

Far right: Rainbow powder is about to fly at the Holi Festival of Colors, where attendees prepare to blow a handful of fun at Irvington High in Fremont.

KARL MONDON/STAFF

CHAI STOP

It’s not hard to find a good cup of chai in the Bay Area. But Berkeley’s Elaichi Co. is distinguishing itself from the crowd by putting an emphasis on quality ingredients and fostering a community gathering space.

The chai and coffee shop near UC Berkeley was inspired by co-owner Muhammad “Mojo” Joyo’s memories of time spent with family and friends at chai stands on visits home to Pakistan. Elaichi Co. is an effort to re-create that feeling, evident in the shop’s later-than-usual hours and curated array of chai offerings and snacks. They also offer standard coffee shop fare with South Asian flavors, including a salted jaggery latte and haldi doodh or turmeric latte.

The dish: Order a hot karak chai ($5) — a milky spiced tea — with a cake rusk ($1.50) for dipping.

Details: Open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and until 11 p.m. Friday-Saturday at 2161 Allston Way in Berkeley; www.elaichico.com.

Catch Bollywood blockbusters and South Asian films — with English subtitles — in Fremont at Ciné Lounge Fremont 7.

ARIC CRABB/STAFF

Cultural festivals across the Bay weave a tapestry of tradition

BY BRITTANY DELAY

The Bay Area has long represented a vibrant and everevolving mosaic of people, traditions and heritage. From traditional Japanese hanami celebrations to Scottish revelries, the region’s cultural festivals invite locals and visitors alike to step into another world and experience the traditions that shape our communities. Here’s just a sampling of events happening in 2025.

DUBLIN ST. PATRICK’S DAY CELEBRATION

We may associate this country’s historic waves of Irish American immigration with Massachusetts and its New England neighbors. But sunny California is actually home to more Irish Americans — 2.2 million — than any other state, thanks to a Gold Rush-inspired Irish influx. Immigrants Michael Murray and Jeremiah and Eleanor Fallon arrived in 1846, seeking farmland and soon, gold. There’s a Dublin school named after Murray,

Pleasanton’s Young American Patriots Fife and Drum Corps were among the performers at Dublin’s 2023 St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

RAY CHAVEZ/ STAFF ARCHIVES

and Eastern Alameda County was originally named Murray Township.

It’s only fitting that the Bay Area city of Dublin — with a name and rolling green hills that conjure up the Emerald Isle — honor its namesake with a lively parade, Irish dancing, traditional food and an abundance of family-friendly festivities each year on the weekend closest to St. Patrick’s Day. The festi-

OAKLAND GREEK FESTIVAL

For three days every spring, the heart of this city beats to the sounds of Greek music, the aromas of grilled lamb and baklava and the rhythms of traditional folk dances. This festival began in May 1972 as Greek Week, a modest gathering that quickly grew into one of Northern California’s largest and oldest Greek festivals.

With more than 100,000 Greek-Americans in California, the sense of community here is palpable. The festival is organized by Ascension Cathedral’s parishioners, many of them first to third-generation Greek Americans. There’s food, music and an artisan marketplace and a chance to see this stunning Greek Orthodox church and its Byzantine architecture.

Details: May 16-18, 2025; oaklandgreekfestival.com

SAN JOSE DIA DE PORTUGAL FESTIVAL

val features three stages, with everything from Irish folk bands to Celtic rockers, alongside food stalls serving up corned beef sliders, boxty and other festive fare. As the parade winds through downtown Dublin, it offers a jubilant display of Irish culture and community pride.

Details: The 2025 celebration — Dublin’s 41st — will be held March 15-16; dublinstpats.com.

One of Northern California’s largest and most vibrant cultural celebrations, San Jose’s Dia de Portugal Festival is a festive commemoration of the death of renowned Portuguese poet Luís de Camões in 1580. The festival, held at History San José every June, honors the contributions of the Portuguese-American community while offering a taste of the homeland through delicious food, traditional music and lively folk dances. Among the festival highlights are performances of hauntingly beautiful fado and a dazzling parade featuring colorful costumes, spirited dancers and majestic Cavalhadas — horseback riders in medieval-inspired garb. The event also offers a unique opportunity to learn about the more than 1.5 million Americans

of Portuguese descent, many tracing their roots to the Azores and Madeira Islands.

Details: June 14, 2025; https:// diadeportugalca.org/

SAN JOSE OBON FESTIVAL

One of the largest Buddhist Obon Festivals in the country turns San Jose’s Japantown into a festive street party every summer. There’s live music, taiko drumming, games, food stalls, cultural booths and on Saturday evening, a jubilant Bon Odori dance to joy and remembrance. Last year, the dancing broke festival records with 1,725 dancers and festivalgoers hitting the streets to folk music — “Shiawase Samba” — by the Chidori Band and San Jose Taiko.

Details: July 13-14, Japantown San Jose, https://www.sjbetsuin.org/

SCOTTISH HIGHLAND GATHERING & GAMES

At least 10 Scottish cultural societies are dotted across the Bay Area and Northern Califor-

Highland dancers compete at the 155th annual Scottish Highland Gathering and Games in Pleasanton in 2021.

SHAE HAMMOND/ STAFF ARCHIVES

Rob Cavrikas Riccardi prepares freshly fried loukoumades for their honey and cinnamon coating at the 2017 Greek Festival at Oakland’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension.

LAURA A. ODA/STAFF ARCHIVES

David Garcia helps Ashley Borba position a basket of Portuguese breads on her head during the 2022 Dia de Portugal Festival in San Jose’s History Park.

WANGYUXUAN XU/STAFF ARCHIVES

nia, including the Caledonian Club of San Francisco, which was founded in 1866, and the St. Andrew’s Society of the East Bay (1878). These benevolent associations celebrate their Caledonian heritage and work to keep their culture, customs and arts alive for the 677,000 Californians who share Scottish ancestry — and the crowds of Scots and non-Scots alike who flock to the incredibly popular Scottish Highland Gathering & Games held in Pleasanton each summer.

The Caledonian Club — Caledonia was the Roman Empire’s name for much of Scotland — has held its famous gathering every year since 1866 to showcase traditions and feats of strength, some dating back to the 11th century. The grand festival has changed locations over the years — an 1868 stint in Sausalito, by the way, was commemorated by the naming of Caledonia Street. For the last 30 years, the festivities, which include Highland dancing, piping and drumming, kilt racing, whisky tastings, hammer throwing and caber tossing, have been held over Labor Day weekend at the Alameda County Fairgrounds.

Details: Aug. 30-31, 2025; https:// thescottishgames.com/

BAY AREA ALOHA FESTIVAL

The Bay Area has long had a vibrant Hawaiian community, a connection that dates back to 1839, when John Sutter brought a small group of Hawaiians to the then-Mexican colony of Alta California, where they worked alongside Sutter during the early years of the Gold Rush. Today, the Golden State has the largest Hawaiian population on the

mainland, and their rich cultural legacy is celebrated at the Bay Area Aloha Festival, organized by the Pacific Islanders’ Cultural Association.

Held annually at San Mateo County Event Center, this family-friendly event evokes the spirit of the islands with a weekend full of hula, traditional Hawaiian music and mouthwatering island cuisine. Visitors can sway to the sounds of the ukulele and steel guitar, savor poke, kalua pig and loco moco and explore a Polynesian arts marketplace.

Details: August 2025; www.pica-org.org/

CLAYTON OKTOBERFEST

You’ve heard the adage that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. We all become Bavarian when mid-September rolls around. With 2.7 million German Americans in California, perhaps we are. Oktoberfest, which began in Munich as a harvest festival to honor an 1810 royal wedding, has become an everywhere celebration that rolls out over nearly six weeks. Oktoberfests pop up each autumn from Redwood City to Clayton, where the party blends small-town charm with German gemutlichkeit, authentic food, oom-pah music and, of course, beer.

In Clayton, guests gather at the festival biergarten to enjoy German lagers and ales at wooden benches and tables — imported from Munich — and enjoy bratwurst, pretzels and schnitzel. Polkas, folk dancing, craft vendors, carnival rides and kid-friendly activities make it a perfect community celebration of both German culture and local pride.

Details: October 2025; claytonoktoberfest.com

Top: The Halau Hula Hi’lani ‘O Ke Kai dancers performed at the 2023 Bay Area Aloha Festival at the San Mateo County Event Center.

Above: Clayton’s annual Oktoberfest celebration brings the community together for beer, bratwurst and polkas.

Opposite: Members of San Jose Taiko perform during the 2023 Obon Festival in San Jose.

KARL MONDON; ARIC CRABB; JOSE CARLOS FAJARDO/STAFF ARCHIVES

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