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"slug": "city-of-oakland-hot-air-balloon-idora-park-piedmont-baths-neptune-beach",
"title": "5 Long-Lost East Bay Attractions That Should’ve Been Saved",
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"content": "\u003cp>These days, anyone in the Bay Area seeking fairground thrills and spills needs to travel to Vallejo or Santa Clara to get ’em. But in the days before Six Flags, Great America and, well, regular people owning cars, the amusements mostly stayed close to Oakland and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13909983\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Francisco\u003c/a> to maximize visitor numbers. And that’s not all that was on offer… Here are five old East Bay attractions that should’ve been saved from the scrap pile.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Idora Park\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910338\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910338\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-800x490.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-800x490.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-1020x625.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-160x98.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-768x471.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-1536x942.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-2048x1255.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-1920x1177.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of the rides at Oakland’s Idora Park—a giant swing.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s a fairly anonymous patch of Oakland now—residential homes, freeway underpasses, parking lots and such—but for 25 years, the plot of land between 56th, 58th, Telegraph and Shattuck was a glorious amusement ground. Idora Park opened in 1904 and was originally conceived as a “trolley park”—an attraction specifically designed to get people to ride public transportation on the weekends. But, oh boy, did the park offer ample incentives for visitors to flock there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13900997']Idora featured beautiful \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/3743\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gardens\u003c/a>, a giant \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/3744\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">roller-skating rink\u003c/a>, a zoo, racetrack, archery range, dance hall, miniature railway, amphitheater with grand outdoor stage, bandstand, Japanese garden \u003cem>and\u003c/em> ostrich farm. All for an entry fee of 10 cents (about three dollars in 2022 money). Plus—there’s more!—peppered throughout the park were \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/162\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">roller coasters\u003c/a> and a variety of fairground attractions including a \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/179\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mountain slide\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/163\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">circular swing\u003c/a>, penny arcade and whatever \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/184\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shooting the Rapids\u003c/a>, the \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/189\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tickler\u003c/a> and the Social Whirl were.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fun came crashing down after cars became more affordable in the 1920s, and folks in Oakland had the means to venture further afield. Idora Park was demolished in 1929. Today, its name is primarily invoked by \u003ca href=\"https://www.532aileen.com/neighborhood-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">realtors trying to sell homes in the Temescal district\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The ‘City of Oakland’ Hot Air Balloon\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910326\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910326\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-800x480.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-800x480.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-1020x612.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-160x96.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-768x461.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-1536x922.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-2048x1230.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-1920x1153.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The “City of Oakland” hot air balloon, surrounded by throngs of well-wishers in 1909, as it prepared to take off from 14th and Franklin in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>City of Oakland\u003c/em>’s maiden voyage happened on Aug. 14, 1909. Surrounded by throngs of people, the balloon took off from 14th and Webster in Oakland. Its 40-foot diameter narrowly avoided a collision with the spires of the First Presbyterian Church, almost drifted out to sea, and eventually plunged to the ground three hours later when 50-mile-per-hour winds hit. Balloon pilots (or “aeronauts” as they were known), Professor A. Van der Naillen Jr. and P. A. Van Tassel, were dragged for half a mile across the floor of a rocky canyon—and through two barbed wire fences!—before the balloon came to a stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During the half mile of dragging we experienced, the basket turned completely over once and I am still wondering how we kept from falling out,” Van der Naillen later told the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em>. Regardless, the voyage was considered a success, with the \u003cem>City of Oakland\u003c/em> reaching its optimum altitude of 5,000 feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the next year, the \u003cem>City of Oakland\u003c/em> went out, up and down the coast, again and again, winning races and giving The Town’s residents a boost of pride. In October 1909, the balloon won a race against the \u003cem>Queen of the Pacific\u003c/em>—a newsworthy event because both were piloted by women. The following month, the balloon beat a \u003cem>City of San Francisco\u003c/em> vessel in a race that started on 11th and Market in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which all begs the question: Why is this thing not on permanent display somewhere?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Piedmont Baths\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910344\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910344\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-800x471.png\" alt=\"A sprawling red brick structure with rounded exterior walls and tall chimneys behind. \" width=\"800\" height=\"471\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-800x471.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-1020x600.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-160x94.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-768x452.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-1536x904.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-1920x1130.png 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM.png 1954w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Piedmont Baths, in all of their turn-of-the-century glory. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>You know the Whole Foods currently standing at Bay Place and Vernon Street? Just up the street from \u003ca href=\"https://fairyland.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fairyland\u003c/a> and Lake Merritt? Well, that site used to be home to a luxurious and sprawling bathhouse and spa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='pop_103040']Founded in 1890, Piedmont Baths provided Victorians with “20 different kinds of baths” (including Turkish and Russian), hot tubs (salt or fresh water), massages, plus a café and candy stand for snack time. It also housed a stunning 70-foot-by-120-foot swimming pool, complete with springboards and a trapeze. The saltwater was drawn from Lake Merritt using a Worthington pump (which could supply 500 gallons per minute) and a circular pump. The water was heated by waste steam from a nearby cable car power plant owned by the Oakland Transit Company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An ad in the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em>, placed Sept. 10, 1900, confidently stated: “People who have visited all the principal baths in this country and Europe all agree that the Piedmont Baths are the most complete in detail and are finished and furnished the best of any baths they have seen in their tour around the world.” The promotion added: “Doctors recommend swimming in tepid saltwater as the very best kind of exercise for young and old, sick and well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Tompkins Park Roller Coaster\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910519\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910519\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM-800x589.png\" alt=\"Seven children, most around the age of 10, all wearing white shirts, hats and suspenders, sit in a miniature railway car.\" width=\"800\" height=\"589\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM-800x589.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM-1020x750.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM-160x118.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM-768x565.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM.png 1370w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The scrappy bunch of kids who built their own 200-foot-long roller coaster in West Oakland in 1915. \u003ccite>(Oakland Tribune, March 27, 1915)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Picture it: West Oakland, 1915. A bunch of streetwise children spend a lot of free time hanging out in Tompkins Park. Directly opposite is an infamous vacant lot that’s known as the “dumps” on account of how much junk and trash gets discarded there. One day, local kids Vincent Carvalho and Raymond Antwiler notice a set of rails and part of a miniature railway have joined the junk pile. So they decide to build themselves a roller coaster. When word spreads of the project, five more enterprising kids—Joey Gomez, Marion Cabral, Ben Viera, Joe Swartz and Frank Dominguez—step up to assist. And, within two weeks, against the odds (insert inspiring montage here), the ragtag crew actually succeeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13909983']On March 27, 1915, the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em> reported on the structure which was set up on a path through and over refuse in the dumps. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13909983\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gravity railroad\u003c/a>-style ride was apparently held up—and propelled—by a large boiler at the top, followed by “a trestle of wood blocks, and driftwood from the beach.” The boys even added some novel customizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was a switch in the system,” the \u003cem>Tribune\u003c/em> reported, “and a side tracking a sharp curve between an old concrete mixer and a discarded boiler … About 200 feet of track in all was laid and a swift trip, though one perhaps somewhat lacking in scenic attractions, was provided for the throngs of young ones that clamored for the privilege.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Neptune Beach\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910351\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910351\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-800x510.png\" alt=\"An old postcard depicts one giant swimming pool, and a smaller one next to it, surrounded by green space and fairground attractions.\" width=\"800\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-800x510.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-1020x651.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-160x102.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-768x490.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-1536x980.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM.png 1812w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alameda’s Neptune Beach was considered the ‘Coney Island of the West.’\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are many legends about Neptune Beach. This Alameda water and amusement park is where the popsicle, snow cone \u003cem>and\u003c/em> Kewpie doll all apparently made their debuts! Open between 1917 and 1939 where \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/visitor-centers/crab-cove\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Crab Cove\u003c/a> is today, Neptune Park had two outdoor pools (one was Olympic-sized), a dance hall, barbecue pits and rentable vacation cottages. Non-swimmers could amuse themselves on the massive roller coaster, Ferris wheel and a carousel that was hand-carved by Philadelphia’s \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentzel_Carousel_Company\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dentzel Company\u003c/a>. Entry to the park was just a dime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attendance slowed down during the Great Depression, and hit a major slump after the Bay Bridge opened in 1936. By 1939, the park was in deep debt. That year, the Central Bank of Oakland foreclosed and, in 1940, the once-hallowed contents of Neptune Beach were sold off at auction for a pittance. Today, the last remaining sign that it was ever there are the \u003ca href=\"https://www.neptunecourtapartments.com/history\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Neptune Court Apartments\u003c/a>, built in the 1920s by \u003ca href=\"https://alamedasun.com/news/100-years-later-remembering-robert-strehlow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Strehlow\u003c/a>, who was a co-founder of the park. You can currently rent a one-bedroom there for $2,200 and up.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>These days, anyone in the Bay Area seeking fairground thrills and spills needs to travel to Vallejo or Santa Clara to get ’em. But in the days before Six Flags, Great America and, well, regular people owning cars, the amusements mostly stayed close to Oakland and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13909983\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Francisco\u003c/a> to maximize visitor numbers. And that’s not all that was on offer… Here are five old East Bay attractions that should’ve been saved from the scrap pile.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Idora Park\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910338\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910338\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-800x490.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-800x490.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-1020x625.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-160x98.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-768x471.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-1536x942.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-2048x1255.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-12.32.21-PM-1920x1177.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of the rides at Oakland’s Idora Park—a giant swing.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s a fairly anonymous patch of Oakland now—residential homes, freeway underpasses, parking lots and such—but for 25 years, the plot of land between 56th, 58th, Telegraph and Shattuck was a glorious amusement ground. Idora Park opened in 1904 and was originally conceived as a “trolley park”—an attraction specifically designed to get people to ride public transportation on the weekends. But, oh boy, did the park offer ample incentives for visitors to flock there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Idora featured beautiful \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/3743\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gardens\u003c/a>, a giant \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/3744\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">roller-skating rink\u003c/a>, a zoo, racetrack, archery range, dance hall, miniature railway, amphitheater with grand outdoor stage, bandstand, Japanese garden \u003cem>and\u003c/em> ostrich farm. All for an entry fee of 10 cents (about three dollars in 2022 money). Plus—there’s more!—peppered throughout the park were \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/162\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">roller coasters\u003c/a> and a variety of fairground attractions including a \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/179\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mountain slide\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/163\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">circular swing\u003c/a>, penny arcade and whatever \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/184\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shooting the Rapids\u003c/a>, the \u003ca href=\"https://alamedainfo.com/idora-park-oakland-california/#bwg2/189\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tickler\u003c/a> and the Social Whirl were.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fun came crashing down after cars became more affordable in the 1920s, and folks in Oakland had the means to venture further afield. Idora Park was demolished in 1929. Today, its name is primarily invoked by \u003ca href=\"https://www.532aileen.com/neighborhood-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">realtors trying to sell homes in the Temescal district\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The ‘City of Oakland’ Hot Air Balloon\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910326\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910326\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-800x480.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-800x480.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-1020x612.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-160x96.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-768x461.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-1536x922.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-2048x1230.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-09-at-4.47.28-PM-1920x1153.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The “City of Oakland” hot air balloon, surrounded by throngs of well-wishers in 1909, as it prepared to take off from 14th and Franklin in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>City of Oakland\u003c/em>’s maiden voyage happened on Aug. 14, 1909. Surrounded by throngs of people, the balloon took off from 14th and Webster in Oakland. Its 40-foot diameter narrowly avoided a collision with the spires of the First Presbyterian Church, almost drifted out to sea, and eventually plunged to the ground three hours later when 50-mile-per-hour winds hit. Balloon pilots (or “aeronauts” as they were known), Professor A. Van der Naillen Jr. and P. A. Van Tassel, were dragged for half a mile across the floor of a rocky canyon—and through two barbed wire fences!—before the balloon came to a stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During the half mile of dragging we experienced, the basket turned completely over once and I am still wondering how we kept from falling out,” Van der Naillen later told the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em>. Regardless, the voyage was considered a success, with the \u003cem>City of Oakland\u003c/em> reaching its optimum altitude of 5,000 feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the next year, the \u003cem>City of Oakland\u003c/em> went out, up and down the coast, again and again, winning races and giving The Town’s residents a boost of pride. In October 1909, the balloon won a race against the \u003cem>Queen of the Pacific\u003c/em>—a newsworthy event because both were piloted by women. The following month, the balloon beat a \u003cem>City of San Francisco\u003c/em> vessel in a race that started on 11th and Market in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which all begs the question: Why is this thing not on permanent display somewhere?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Piedmont Baths\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910344\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910344\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-800x471.png\" alt=\"A sprawling red brick structure with rounded exterior walls and tall chimneys behind. \" width=\"800\" height=\"471\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-800x471.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-1020x600.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-160x94.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-768x452.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-1536x904.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM-1920x1130.png 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-1.23.00-PM.png 1954w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Piedmont Baths, in all of their turn-of-the-century glory. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>You know the Whole Foods currently standing at Bay Place and Vernon Street? Just up the street from \u003ca href=\"https://fairyland.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fairyland\u003c/a> and Lake Merritt? Well, that site used to be home to a luxurious and sprawling bathhouse and spa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Founded in 1890, Piedmont Baths provided Victorians with “20 different kinds of baths” (including Turkish and Russian), hot tubs (salt or fresh water), massages, plus a café and candy stand for snack time. It also housed a stunning 70-foot-by-120-foot swimming pool, complete with springboards and a trapeze. The saltwater was drawn from Lake Merritt using a Worthington pump (which could supply 500 gallons per minute) and a circular pump. The water was heated by waste steam from a nearby cable car power plant owned by the Oakland Transit Company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An ad in the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em>, placed Sept. 10, 1900, confidently stated: “People who have visited all the principal baths in this country and Europe all agree that the Piedmont Baths are the most complete in detail and are finished and furnished the best of any baths they have seen in their tour around the world.” The promotion added: “Doctors recommend swimming in tepid saltwater as the very best kind of exercise for young and old, sick and well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Tompkins Park Roller Coaster\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910519\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910519\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM-800x589.png\" alt=\"Seven children, most around the age of 10, all wearing white shirts, hats and suspenders, sit in a miniature railway car.\" width=\"800\" height=\"589\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM-800x589.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM-1020x750.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM-160x118.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM-768x565.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-11-at-4.43.51-PM.png 1370w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The scrappy bunch of kids who built their own 200-foot-long roller coaster in West Oakland in 1915. \u003ccite>(Oakland Tribune, March 27, 1915)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Picture it: West Oakland, 1915. A bunch of streetwise children spend a lot of free time hanging out in Tompkins Park. Directly opposite is an infamous vacant lot that’s known as the “dumps” on account of how much junk and trash gets discarded there. One day, local kids Vincent Carvalho and Raymond Antwiler notice a set of rails and part of a miniature railway have joined the junk pile. So they decide to build themselves a roller coaster. When word spreads of the project, five more enterprising kids—Joey Gomez, Marion Cabral, Ben Viera, Joe Swartz and Frank Dominguez—step up to assist. And, within two weeks, against the odds (insert inspiring montage here), the ragtag crew actually succeeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>On March 27, 1915, the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em> reported on the structure which was set up on a path through and over refuse in the dumps. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13909983\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gravity railroad\u003c/a>-style ride was apparently held up—and propelled—by a large boiler at the top, followed by “a trestle of wood blocks, and driftwood from the beach.” The boys even added some novel customizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was a switch in the system,” the \u003cem>Tribune\u003c/em> reported, “and a side tracking a sharp curve between an old concrete mixer and a discarded boiler … About 200 feet of track in all was laid and a swift trip, though one perhaps somewhat lacking in scenic attractions, was provided for the throngs of young ones that clamored for the privilege.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Neptune Beach\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910351\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910351\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-800x510.png\" alt=\"An old postcard depicts one giant swimming pool, and a smaller one next to it, surrounded by green space and fairground attractions.\" width=\"800\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-800x510.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-1020x651.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-160x102.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-768x490.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM-1536x980.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-10-at-2.01.07-PM.png 1812w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alameda’s Neptune Beach was considered the ‘Coney Island of the West.’\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are many legends about Neptune Beach. This Alameda water and amusement park is where the popsicle, snow cone \u003cem>and\u003c/em> Kewpie doll all apparently made their debuts! Open between 1917 and 1939 where \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/visitor-centers/crab-cove\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Crab Cove\u003c/a> is today, Neptune Park had two outdoor pools (one was Olympic-sized), a dance hall, barbecue pits and rentable vacation cottages. Non-swimmers could amuse themselves on the massive roller coaster, Ferris wheel and a carousel that was hand-carved by Philadelphia’s \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentzel_Carousel_Company\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dentzel Company\u003c/a>. Entry to the park was just a dime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attendance slowed down during the Great Depression, and hit a major slump after the Bay Bridge opened in 1936. By 1939, the park was in deep debt. That year, the Central Bank of Oakland foreclosed and, in 1940, the once-hallowed contents of Neptune Beach were sold off at auction for a pittance. Today, the last remaining sign that it was ever there are the \u003ca href=\"https://www.neptunecourtapartments.com/history\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Neptune Court Apartments\u003c/a>, built in the 1920s by \u003ca href=\"https://alamedasun.com/news/100-years-later-remembering-robert-strehlow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Strehlow\u003c/a>, who was a co-founder of the park. You can currently rent a one-bedroom there for $2,200 and up.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "victorian-attractions-san-francisco-chutes-gravity-railroad-woodwards-gardens-bonet-tower-auditorium-skating",
"title": "5 Long-Lost San Francisco Attractions the City Should’ve Kept",
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"headTitle": "5 Long-Lost San Francisco Attractions the City Should’ve Kept | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>For many of us looking back, the Victorian era doesn’t look like a whole lot of fun. (Too many séances and mourning dresses, not enough sex and deodorant, thanks.) It turns out, though, that Victorians in San Francisco had way more fun crap to climb, plunge down and scream on than we currently do—and I’m not even talking about \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playland_(San_Francisco)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Playland-at-the-Beach\u003c/a>. Here, then, are five old amusements that the city would still be super into if they’d survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Chutes\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910208\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910208\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-800x481.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-800x481.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-1020x613.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-160x96.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-768x462.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-1536x924.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-2048x1232.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-1920x1155.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The view from the top of The Chutes. And yes, that road with the vehicles on, behind the man-made lake, is Haight Street circa 1895. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Picture it. Haight Street between Cole and Clayton. Only instead of all the stores, bars and hotels lined up between Hobson’s Choice and Goodwill, there’s an old-timey, giant version of Splash Mountain there. This was the glorious reality at the turn of the century when “The Chutes”—a huge waterslide, ridden in a flat-bottomed boat—were shooting scores of people into a man-made lake, all day every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13910308']On Dec. 14, 1895—the same year the ride opened—the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> reported: “The amphibious boats were sent flying after one another down the chute into the pond as fast and full as safety would permit. Many went to watch only, and then seeing what an exhilarating sport the chuting was for others, decided to try it themselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ride was 350 feet long, 70 feet tall and ran up to 60 miles per hour. It was a bargain, too, charging kids a nickel and adults a dime (about $3 in 2022 money) to ride. The Chutes were incredibly popular, but were moved to Fulton Street (between 10th and 11th) in 1902. Another version located at Ocean Beach was the launching pad for Playland at the Beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Gravity Pleasure Railroad\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910007\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910007\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM-800x427.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM-800x427.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM-1020x544.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM-160x85.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM-768x410.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM.png 1492w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The circular Gravity Pleasure Railroad at Eighth and Mission likely resembled this one from the same period. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>An ad was placed in the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> on Dec. 12, 1884, advertising the city’s newest attraction. Under the all caps title “ROLLER COASTER,” the notice read:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The California Gravity Railroad Co. SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. A sled-ride down hill without snow! Great sport! Physicians recommend it! Bring your family and enjoy yourselves. Open day and evening. Electric Lights.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The 25-foot-high thrill ride was 200 feet in diameter and situated at the intersection of 8th and Mission Streets. Opened Nov. 27, 1884, the Gravity Railroad was designed to operate under its own weight. Each car held 10 to 12 passengers, and was pushed down the steepest part of the track at great speed, the momentum of which would propel it back up again to where it had started. It cost five cents to ride. Sadly, the gravity railroad didn’t last long. It was destroyed in May 1887 by a fire that started in a nearby candy store.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Woodward’s Gardens\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910003\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910003\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-800x527.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"527\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-800x527.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-1020x672.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-160x105.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-768x506.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-1536x1012.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-1920x1265.png 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM.png 1958w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Woodward’s Gardens, for all of your two-headed animal needs. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Open in the Mission District between 1866 and 1891, Woodward’s Gardens was completely bananas. In addition to its botanical gardens, art gallery, zoo, aquarium and four museums, it also featured live music and housed a variety of curiosities, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13884403/for-one-week-in-1871-san-francisco-went-loopy-over-haunted-windows\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“haunted” windows from North Beach\u003c/a>, a stuffed two-headed calf, and an insect display. Special guest appearances—from the likes of “Chang, the Chinese Giant” and “Admiral Dot, a perfect man in miniature”—also made the venue extremely popular at a time when society had few qualms about such shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is unfathomable how owner Robert B. Woodward fit all of this into the blocks bordered by Valencia, Ridley (now Duboce), Mission and 15th Streets—but apparently it was all too much for the neighbors. The park wound up closing down after locals complained about unpleasant “odors and horrible noises.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bonet’s Electric Tower\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910061\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-2.56.29-PM-800x558.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"558\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Leopold Bonet’s Electric Tower, as seen at night during the California Midwinter International Exposition, in Golden Gate Park, 1894. \u003ccite>(Public Domain/ Originally created by Marvin Nathan and Arthur Chandler)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 left Golden Gate Park with a couple of gifts that continue to thrive today—the Japanese Tea Garden and the De Young Museum (which started life as the expo’s Fine Arts Building). If things had played out a little differently, we might also still have Bonet’s Electric Tower.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13884403']The tower was 272 feet tall, covered in thousands of multicolored lights and modeled after Paris’ Eiffel Tower—though architect Leopold Bonet used steel, not iron like the original. During the expo, the Electric Tower acted as a central attraction and viewing platform for fairgoers, who could travel to the top of it in an elevator. At night, the tower’s 6,000-pound searchlight—then the largest and most powerful in America—could be seen in the sky for miles. The attraction was the biggest financial success of the Midwinter Fair, costing a dime to get to the tower’s first level and a quarter to get to the top. The tower also housed the Bella Vista Café.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Midwinter Fair closed in July 1894 after a booming five months in operation. But Bonet’s Electric Tower was left standing for two years after the fact. Hopes to keep it as a permanent landmark were dashed after Golden Gate Park’s horticulturalist John McLaren—who vocally opposed holding the expo there in the first place—had the tower blown up with explosives and sold for scrap.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Auditorium Skating Rink\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910035\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910035\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-800x459.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"459\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-800x459.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-1020x585.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-160x92.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-768x440.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-1536x881.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM.png 1782w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist’s rendition of the Fillmore’s Auditorium skating rink, as seen in the ‘San Francisco Call’ in 1906.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Opened 1906, the Auditorium occupied the entire block between Fillmore and Steiner Streets along Page. This grand marble hall had a skating space that measured about 335 feet by 100 feet. But at capacity, the entire space could accommodate 8,000 people. Which is why it also served as a major venue, hosting military balls, boxing matches, hospital benefits, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and all manner of other events. The interior featured 6,000 lights, oak walls, classical paintings and mirrored pillars. There were even smoking rooms to retire to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13898226']The Auditorium’s primary use, of course, was for roller discos (the bandstand was big enough to hold 110 musicians) and roller polo matches (a no-brainer given that Auditorium manager Frank Rittigstein was the president of the Pacific Coast Roller Polo League). While covering a match at the Auditorium in 1907, the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em> referred to roller polo as, “By far the most exciting indoor game in the present day.” The newspaper continued: “It is extremely dangerous to the players and only the most expert roller skaters are allowed to play.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1913, the Fillmore venue ran into trouble after alcohol was apparently served to minors. The Auditorium subsequently lost its liquor license. Two years later, the building was destroyed by a massive fire that took down four neighboring stores and killed a firefighter. Thankfully, today the Church of Eight Wheels is keeping skating alive in the neighborhood, just a couple of blocks from where the Auditorium once stood.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A giant water ride on Haight Street. An elaborate fairground in the Mission. Here's how the Victorians lived it up.",
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"title": "5 Long-Lost San Francisco Attractions the City Should’ve Kept | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For many of us looking back, the Victorian era doesn’t look like a whole lot of fun. (Too many séances and mourning dresses, not enough sex and deodorant, thanks.) It turns out, though, that Victorians in San Francisco had way more fun crap to climb, plunge down and scream on than we currently do—and I’m not even talking about \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playland_(San_Francisco)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Playland-at-the-Beach\u003c/a>. Here, then, are five old amusements that the city would still be super into if they’d survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The Chutes\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910208\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910208\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-800x481.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-800x481.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-1020x613.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-160x96.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-768x462.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-1536x924.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-2048x1232.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-3.13.17-PM-1920x1155.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The view from the top of The Chutes. And yes, that road with the vehicles on, behind the man-made lake, is Haight Street circa 1895. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Picture it. Haight Street between Cole and Clayton. Only instead of all the stores, bars and hotels lined up between Hobson’s Choice and Goodwill, there’s an old-timey, giant version of Splash Mountain there. This was the glorious reality at the turn of the century when “The Chutes”—a huge waterslide, ridden in a flat-bottomed boat—were shooting scores of people into a man-made lake, all day every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>On Dec. 14, 1895—the same year the ride opened—the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> reported: “The amphibious boats were sent flying after one another down the chute into the pond as fast and full as safety would permit. Many went to watch only, and then seeing what an exhilarating sport the chuting was for others, decided to try it themselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ride was 350 feet long, 70 feet tall and ran up to 60 miles per hour. It was a bargain, too, charging kids a nickel and adults a dime (about $3 in 2022 money) to ride. The Chutes were incredibly popular, but were moved to Fulton Street (between 10th and 11th) in 1902. Another version located at Ocean Beach was the launching pad for Playland at the Beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Gravity Pleasure Railroad\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910007\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910007\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM-800x427.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM-800x427.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM-1020x544.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM-160x85.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM-768x410.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-6.10.12-PM.png 1492w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The circular Gravity Pleasure Railroad at Eighth and Mission likely resembled this one from the same period. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>An ad was placed in the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> on Dec. 12, 1884, advertising the city’s newest attraction. Under the all caps title “ROLLER COASTER,” the notice read:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The California Gravity Railroad Co. SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. A sled-ride down hill without snow! Great sport! Physicians recommend it! Bring your family and enjoy yourselves. Open day and evening. Electric Lights.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The 25-foot-high thrill ride was 200 feet in diameter and situated at the intersection of 8th and Mission Streets. Opened Nov. 27, 1884, the Gravity Railroad was designed to operate under its own weight. Each car held 10 to 12 passengers, and was pushed down the steepest part of the track at great speed, the momentum of which would propel it back up again to where it had started. It cost five cents to ride. Sadly, the gravity railroad didn’t last long. It was destroyed in May 1887 by a fire that started in a nearby candy store.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Woodward’s Gardens\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910003\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910003\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-800x527.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"527\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-800x527.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-1020x672.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-160x105.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-768x506.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-1536x1012.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM-1920x1265.png 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-02-at-5.26.17-PM.png 1958w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Woodward’s Gardens, for all of your two-headed animal needs. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Open in the Mission District between 1866 and 1891, Woodward’s Gardens was completely bananas. In addition to its botanical gardens, art gallery, zoo, aquarium and four museums, it also featured live music and housed a variety of curiosities, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13884403/for-one-week-in-1871-san-francisco-went-loopy-over-haunted-windows\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“haunted” windows from North Beach\u003c/a>, a stuffed two-headed calf, and an insect display. Special guest appearances—from the likes of “Chang, the Chinese Giant” and “Admiral Dot, a perfect man in miniature”—also made the venue extremely popular at a time when society had few qualms about such shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is unfathomable how owner Robert B. Woodward fit all of this into the blocks bordered by Valencia, Ridley (now Duboce), Mission and 15th Streets—but apparently it was all too much for the neighbors. The park wound up closing down after locals complained about unpleasant “odors and horrible noises.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bonet’s Electric Tower\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910061\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-2.56.29-PM-800x558.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"558\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Leopold Bonet’s Electric Tower, as seen at night during the California Midwinter International Exposition, in Golden Gate Park, 1894. \u003ccite>(Public Domain/ Originally created by Marvin Nathan and Arthur Chandler)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 left Golden Gate Park with a couple of gifts that continue to thrive today—the Japanese Tea Garden and the De Young Museum (which started life as the expo’s Fine Arts Building). If things had played out a little differently, we might also still have Bonet’s Electric Tower.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The tower was 272 feet tall, covered in thousands of multicolored lights and modeled after Paris’ Eiffel Tower—though architect Leopold Bonet used steel, not iron like the original. During the expo, the Electric Tower acted as a central attraction and viewing platform for fairgoers, who could travel to the top of it in an elevator. At night, the tower’s 6,000-pound searchlight—then the largest and most powerful in America—could be seen in the sky for miles. The attraction was the biggest financial success of the Midwinter Fair, costing a dime to get to the tower’s first level and a quarter to get to the top. The tower also housed the Bella Vista Café.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Midwinter Fair closed in July 1894 after a booming five months in operation. But Bonet’s Electric Tower was left standing for two years after the fact. Hopes to keep it as a permanent landmark were dashed after Golden Gate Park’s horticulturalist John McLaren—who vocally opposed holding the expo there in the first place—had the tower blown up with explosives and sold for scrap.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Auditorium Skating Rink\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13910035\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13910035\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-800x459.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"459\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-800x459.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-1020x585.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-160x92.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-768x440.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM-1536x881.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-1.42.08-PM.png 1782w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist’s rendition of the Fillmore’s Auditorium skating rink, as seen in the ‘San Francisco Call’ in 1906.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Opened 1906, the Auditorium occupied the entire block between Fillmore and Steiner Streets along Page. This grand marble hall had a skating space that measured about 335 feet by 100 feet. But at capacity, the entire space could accommodate 8,000 people. Which is why it also served as a major venue, hosting military balls, boxing matches, hospital benefits, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and all manner of other events. The interior featured 6,000 lights, oak walls, classical paintings and mirrored pillars. There were even smoking rooms to retire to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Auditorium’s primary use, of course, was for roller discos (the bandstand was big enough to hold 110 musicians) and roller polo matches (a no-brainer given that Auditorium manager Frank Rittigstein was the president of the Pacific Coast Roller Polo League). While covering a match at the Auditorium in 1907, the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em> referred to roller polo as, “By far the most exciting indoor game in the present day.” The newspaper continued: “It is extremely dangerous to the players and only the most expert roller skaters are allowed to play.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1913, the Fillmore venue ran into trouble after alcohol was apparently served to minors. The Auditorium subsequently lost its liquor license. Two years later, the building was destroyed by a massive fire that took down four neighboring stores and killed a firefighter. Thankfully, today the Church of Eight Wheels is keeping skating alive in the neighborhood, just a couple of blocks from where the Auditorium once stood.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hite people called it “the colored school.” In Sacramento, city documents, and local newspapers, it was referred to as: “Ungraded School No. 2—Colored.” But to the children who attended, it was simply “Miss Jones’ school.” And those children—many of them honor students—enjoyed an excellent education, high scores on their public school exams, and a teacher who was deeply invested in their futures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah Mildred Jones was the first Black female teacher in Sacramento in the two decades after \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13881675/the-19th-century-teacher-who-fought-to-give-black-children-an-education\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood\u003c/a> set up the city’s first school for children of color in her own home in 1854. By all accounts, Jones’ classroom was a vibrant place to learn. One description of the “closing exercises” before summer break appeared in the \u003cem>Record-Union\u003c/em> newspaper in 1883. The July report stated:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The walls were profusely draped with the red, white and blue, gathered in festoons caught up by trim-colored rosettes, while evergreen national flags and other patriotic emblems were tastefully disposed throughout the room, together with bouquets of flowers … The pupils were promptly in their seats, presented a bright and attractive appearance and manifested the liveliest interest in the proceedings … There was a promptness in recitation and dialogue, and a vivacity in the class singing that testified to good training.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Jones took over Ungraded School No. 2 in August 1873 after Emily A. Aubrey—a white teacher who had been there since 1869—was repeatedly denied a raise and resigned in frustration. The school’s designation as “ungraded” means Jones was responsible for teaching children of all ages and abilities in a single room. (Ungraded schools were a product of small, still-developing communities. Ungraded School No. 1, for example, was for white children.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13881675']Jones was born in Missouri, graduated from Ohio’s Oberlin college in 1865, and first worked as a teacher in Washington, D.C. She headed west in 1873, quickly earned her California teaching certificate—scoring in the 95th percentile—and went right to work with the 52 primary and intermediary pupils of Ungraded School No. 2. Jones was light-skinned and could have passed for white at a time when concealing her identity might have meant an easier—and more lucrative—career path. But she didn’t shy away from her role within her community; she felt the place she could have the most positive impact was with younger Black students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Jones arrived in Sacramento, the question of race in schools was something the local school board, teachers and city officials were still very much wrestling with. Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood had set up the first school for Black children in 1854 because public schools in Sacramento were for white children only. Even after Flood’s popular school was quickly accepted into Sacramento’s official school district, she was still denied funding. Public funding for Black schools only became mandated in 1870, after state law was amended to say that “children of African descent and Indian” must be provided with “separate schools,” or “admitted into the schools of white children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One need only look at the white principal of the Sacramento City Grammar School, Alexander Holmes McDonald, to get a flavor of education-based tensions at the time. At the start of 1873, McDonald had been endorsed by the Democratic City Central Committee to be the city superintendent of schools. That was, until McDonald refused to commit, in writing, to the exclusion of Black children from his grammar school. He was quickly passed over and a man named Addison Hinkson was hired as superintendent instead. When McDonald accepted two Black girls into his grammar school in Dec. 1873, Hinkson put him on notice. “You are hereby instructed to admit no children of African descent, or Indian children into your school,” Hinkson wrote. When McDonald defied Hinkson’s order, he was promptly fired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='pop_108474']Jones would later have her own battle with Hinkson, after he publicly suggested she was in favor of school segregation. In response to these assertions, Jones clarified in \u003cem>The Sacramento Bee\u003c/em>, “I would rather teach my students separately, as opposed to having them taught by a white teacher and be made to feel inferior because of their skin color.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he strides forward that Jones swiftly made at Ungraded School No. 2 were no small feats. Just months after her arrival, Jones managed to acquire a second classroom after lobbying the Sacramento School Board. On April 27, 1874, the chairman of the board’s building committee declared:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>We are satisfied that notwithstanding her eminent qualifications for the position which she holds, [Jones] can not do justice to that number of pupils in an ungraded school without doing great injustice to herself. And therefore, without the question of separate schools, we are emphatically of the opinion that another teacher and room are required.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>A week later, Jones was also given a raise—taking her monthly wages from $90 to $100—after the school board introduced a resolution to pay teachers $100 a month. Jones advocated on her own behalf to make sure she would earn the same as white teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After segregation was outlawed in California schools in 1880, Ungraded School No. 2 was moved and attached to the Capitol Grammar School. And while the two classrooms there were still not integrated with the rest of the grammar school, the move brought Black and white children together in new ways. On Aug. 27, 1881, a columnist for the \u003cem>Sacramento Daily Record Union\u003c/em> wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Day after day, I see three or four negro girls with school books and lunch pails trudging along side-by-side with one or more white girls, always in earnest conversation, and there seems to be no thought of race between them. Since the abolishment of the colored school we not infrequently find names that belonged to it on our rolls of honor, and the experiment has worked well.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>With her stellar reputation preceding her, in 1894 Jones became the first Black woman in Sacramento to become principal of a fully integrated elementary school. She was the only Black member of the Fremont Primary School’s faculty, where the vast majority of pupils were white.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By that time, Jones’ 20 years of dedicated service to the children of Sacramento was so well-established, not even protests by 36 racist parents shook her position at the downtown school. When the parents called for her removal, 98 of her fellow teachers stepped up with a petition in her defense. (Including, delightfully, the niece of Addison Hinkson.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Oct. 3, 1894, after arguments between both sides were heard, Jones also spoke in her own defense before a gathering of both the school board and the parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>Record-Union\u003c/em> reported:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Miss Jones appeared and stated her case, and made a deep impression by her straightforward manner. She pointed to the fact that the school, opened only two days, was full, already; that for the first time it had two fifth grade classes, and that did not look like ill success. She recited a list of her educational certificates, from her Eastern collegiate diploma to her State life certificate, and outlined her teaching career of 18 years in the city, and asked for time for the people of the district to see and know her. She spoke with feeling, but with dignity … A motion to receive and file the petition prevailed unanimously and the matter was dropped, the sense of the board being to give the teacher a trial, in view of her qualifications and success.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The matter was never revisited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once she was safely appointed at the Fremont School, Jones went about saving the two beloved classrooms of Ungraded School No. 2, which had been slated for demolition. She successfully persuaded the school district to move them to the Fremont School to ease overcrowding in the elementary department. Not only did the district oblige, they also agreed to Jones’ request to elevate the classrooms to protect them from flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ones’ dedication to children extended beyond her own city. In April 1906, she joined forces with Rev. Mary Bowen to establish a “toy department” for San Francisco children who had lost everything in the recent earthquake and fire. The pair asked principals all over the Bay to collect used “toys, books, pictures and other trinkets [pupils] have no further use for.” And this simple gesture towards San Francisco’s children was a source of immediate comfort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A report in the \u003cem>Record-Union\u003c/em> on April 27, 1906 stated:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The first consignment of toys yesterday reached the children of fire sufferers from San Francisco and the little ones were so overjoyed that they seemed beside themselves. They laughed and cried by turns. There was a touching little scene when a child was given a doll which she declared was the veritable one she thought had been burned in the big fire. She pressed the doll to her bosom in an ecstasy of delight, calling the new-found doll by the old name, and no one had the heart to dispel her illusion and tell her that it was a case of mistaken identity.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Even after Jones officially retired as principal in 1914, she kept working to make the lives of Bay Area children better. She served on the Sacramento School Board until 1920—just five years before her death at the age 83. In her will, she left $1,000 to Booker T. Washington School in Tuskegee, Alabama, and $500 to St. Andrews Church, which had once housed Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood’s school for children of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13892514']In Feb. 1996, an expert on Jones’ life named Marilyn Demas told the \u003cem>Sacramento Bee\u003c/em> that this groundbreaking teacher should be an example to us all. “[Jones] shows that there is hope,” Demas said. “People can triumph, can persevere. Nobody opened doors for her. She was a woman. She was Black. And she was extremely successful. She had that—what can you say?—that burning light.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>To learn about other Rebel Girls from Bay Area History, visit the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/rebelgirls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebel Girls homepage\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A book celebrating women from the Rebel Girls series, \u003ca href=\"https://citylights.com/politics-current-events-history/unsung-heroines35-women-who-changed/\">‘Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area,’\u003c/a> is available now from City Lights.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">W\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>hite people called it “the colored school.” In Sacramento, city documents, and local newspapers, it was referred to as: “Ungraded School No. 2—Colored.” But to the children who attended, it was simply “Miss Jones’ school.” And those children—many of them honor students—enjoyed an excellent education, high scores on their public school exams, and a teacher who was deeply invested in their futures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah Mildred Jones was the first Black female teacher in Sacramento in the two decades after \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13881675/the-19th-century-teacher-who-fought-to-give-black-children-an-education\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood\u003c/a> set up the city’s first school for children of color in her own home in 1854. By all accounts, Jones’ classroom was a vibrant place to learn. One description of the “closing exercises” before summer break appeared in the \u003cem>Record-Union\u003c/em> newspaper in 1883. The July report stated:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The walls were profusely draped with the red, white and blue, gathered in festoons caught up by trim-colored rosettes, while evergreen national flags and other patriotic emblems were tastefully disposed throughout the room, together with bouquets of flowers … The pupils were promptly in their seats, presented a bright and attractive appearance and manifested the liveliest interest in the proceedings … There was a promptness in recitation and dialogue, and a vivacity in the class singing that testified to good training.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Jones took over Ungraded School No. 2 in August 1873 after Emily A. Aubrey—a white teacher who had been there since 1869—was repeatedly denied a raise and resigned in frustration. The school’s designation as “ungraded” means Jones was responsible for teaching children of all ages and abilities in a single room. (Ungraded schools were a product of small, still-developing communities. Ungraded School No. 1, for example, was for white children.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Jones was born in Missouri, graduated from Ohio’s Oberlin college in 1865, and first worked as a teacher in Washington, D.C. She headed west in 1873, quickly earned her California teaching certificate—scoring in the 95th percentile—and went right to work with the 52 primary and intermediary pupils of Ungraded School No. 2. Jones was light-skinned and could have passed for white at a time when concealing her identity might have meant an easier—and more lucrative—career path. But she didn’t shy away from her role within her community; she felt the place she could have the most positive impact was with younger Black students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Jones arrived in Sacramento, the question of race in schools was something the local school board, teachers and city officials were still very much wrestling with. Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood had set up the first school for Black children in 1854 because public schools in Sacramento were for white children only. Even after Flood’s popular school was quickly accepted into Sacramento’s official school district, she was still denied funding. Public funding for Black schools only became mandated in 1870, after state law was amended to say that “children of African descent and Indian” must be provided with “separate schools,” or “admitted into the schools of white children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One need only look at the white principal of the Sacramento City Grammar School, Alexander Holmes McDonald, to get a flavor of education-based tensions at the time. At the start of 1873, McDonald had been endorsed by the Democratic City Central Committee to be the city superintendent of schools. That was, until McDonald refused to commit, in writing, to the exclusion of Black children from his grammar school. He was quickly passed over and a man named Addison Hinkson was hired as superintendent instead. When McDonald accepted two Black girls into his grammar school in Dec. 1873, Hinkson put him on notice. “You are hereby instructed to admit no children of African descent, or Indian children into your school,” Hinkson wrote. When McDonald defied Hinkson’s order, he was promptly fired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Jones would later have her own battle with Hinkson, after he publicly suggested she was in favor of school segregation. In response to these assertions, Jones clarified in \u003cem>The Sacramento Bee\u003c/em>, “I would rather teach my students separately, as opposed to having them taught by a white teacher and be made to feel inferior because of their skin color.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">T\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>he strides forward that Jones swiftly made at Ungraded School No. 2 were no small feats. Just months after her arrival, Jones managed to acquire a second classroom after lobbying the Sacramento School Board. On April 27, 1874, the chairman of the board’s building committee declared:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>We are satisfied that notwithstanding her eminent qualifications for the position which she holds, [Jones] can not do justice to that number of pupils in an ungraded school without doing great injustice to herself. And therefore, without the question of separate schools, we are emphatically of the opinion that another teacher and room are required.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>A week later, Jones was also given a raise—taking her monthly wages from $90 to $100—after the school board introduced a resolution to pay teachers $100 a month. Jones advocated on her own behalf to make sure she would earn the same as white teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After segregation was outlawed in California schools in 1880, Ungraded School No. 2 was moved and attached to the Capitol Grammar School. And while the two classrooms there were still not integrated with the rest of the grammar school, the move brought Black and white children together in new ways. On Aug. 27, 1881, a columnist for the \u003cem>Sacramento Daily Record Union\u003c/em> wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Day after day, I see three or four negro girls with school books and lunch pails trudging along side-by-side with one or more white girls, always in earnest conversation, and there seems to be no thought of race between them. Since the abolishment of the colored school we not infrequently find names that belonged to it on our rolls of honor, and the experiment has worked well.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>With her stellar reputation preceding her, in 1894 Jones became the first Black woman in Sacramento to become principal of a fully integrated elementary school. She was the only Black member of the Fremont Primary School’s faculty, where the vast majority of pupils were white.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By that time, Jones’ 20 years of dedicated service to the children of Sacramento was so well-established, not even protests by 36 racist parents shook her position at the downtown school. When the parents called for her removal, 98 of her fellow teachers stepped up with a petition in her defense. (Including, delightfully, the niece of Addison Hinkson.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Oct. 3, 1894, after arguments between both sides were heard, Jones also spoke in her own defense before a gathering of both the school board and the parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>Record-Union\u003c/em> reported:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Miss Jones appeared and stated her case, and made a deep impression by her straightforward manner. She pointed to the fact that the school, opened only two days, was full, already; that for the first time it had two fifth grade classes, and that did not look like ill success. She recited a list of her educational certificates, from her Eastern collegiate diploma to her State life certificate, and outlined her teaching career of 18 years in the city, and asked for time for the people of the district to see and know her. She spoke with feeling, but with dignity … A motion to receive and file the petition prevailed unanimously and the matter was dropped, the sense of the board being to give the teacher a trial, in view of her qualifications and success.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The matter was never revisited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once she was safely appointed at the Fremont School, Jones went about saving the two beloved classrooms of Ungraded School No. 2, which had been slated for demolition. She successfully persuaded the school district to move them to the Fremont School to ease overcrowding in the elementary department. Not only did the district oblige, they also agreed to Jones’ request to elevate the classrooms to protect them from flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">J\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>ones’ dedication to children extended beyond her own city. In April 1906, she joined forces with Rev. Mary Bowen to establish a “toy department” for San Francisco children who had lost everything in the recent earthquake and fire. The pair asked principals all over the Bay to collect used “toys, books, pictures and other trinkets [pupils] have no further use for.” And this simple gesture towards San Francisco’s children was a source of immediate comfort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A report in the \u003cem>Record-Union\u003c/em> on April 27, 1906 stated:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The first consignment of toys yesterday reached the children of fire sufferers from San Francisco and the little ones were so overjoyed that they seemed beside themselves. They laughed and cried by turns. There was a touching little scene when a child was given a doll which she declared was the veritable one she thought had been burned in the big fire. She pressed the doll to her bosom in an ecstasy of delight, calling the new-found doll by the old name, and no one had the heart to dispel her illusion and tell her that it was a case of mistaken identity.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Even after Jones officially retired as principal in 1914, she kept working to make the lives of Bay Area children better. She served on the Sacramento School Board until 1920—just five years before her death at the age 83. In her will, she left $1,000 to Booker T. Washington School in Tuskegee, Alabama, and $500 to St. Andrews Church, which had once housed Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood’s school for children of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In Feb. 1996, an expert on Jones’ life named Marilyn Demas told the \u003cem>Sacramento Bee\u003c/em> that this groundbreaking teacher should be an example to us all. “[Jones] shows that there is hope,” Demas said. “People can triumph, can persevere. Nobody opened doors for her. She was a woman. She was Black. And she was extremely successful. She had that—what can you say?—that burning light.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>To learn about other Rebel Girls from Bay Area History, visit the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/rebelgirls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebel Girls homepage\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A book celebrating women from the Rebel Girls series, \u003ca href=\"https://citylights.com/politics-current-events-history/unsung-heroines35-women-who-changed/\">‘Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area,’\u003c/a> is available now from City Lights.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Here's the Story Behind Black History Month—and Why it's Celebrated in February",
"headTitle": "Here’s the Story Behind Black History Month—and Why it’s Celebrated in February | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Every February, the U.S. honors the contributions and sacrifices of African Americans who have helped shape the nation. Black History Month celebrates the rich cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities that are an indelible part of our country’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13825847']This year’s theme, \u003ca href=\"https://asalh.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2022-Black-History-Theme-Executive-Summary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Black Health and Wellness\u003c/a>, pays homage to medical scholars and health care providers. The theme is especially timely as we enter the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected minority communities and placed \u003ca href=\"https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-02-01/black-doctors-covid-burden-patients-social-ills-and-workplace-bigotry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unique burdens\u003c/a> on Black health care professionals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no American history without African American history,” said Sara Clarke Kaplan, executive director of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.american.edu/centers/antiracism/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Antiracist Research & Policy Center\u003c/a> at American University in Washington, D.C. The Black experience, she said, is embedded in “everything we think of as ‘American history.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>First, there was Negro History Week\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13908786\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13908786\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/CarterGWoodson_custom-d5d1457f0e2a1e5ffb5c73df29901e26f8aade17.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white portrait of a young Black man wearing a smart suit jacket, tie and starched white shirt.\" width=\"200\" height=\"268\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/CarterGWoodson_custom-d5d1457f0e2a1e5ffb5c73df29901e26f8aade17.jpg 200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/CarterGWoodson_custom-d5d1457f0e2a1e5ffb5c73df29901e26f8aade17-160x214.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) was an American historian, a scholar and the founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Woodson was instrumental in launching Negro History Week in 1926. \u003ccite>(Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Critics have long argued that Black history should be taught and celebrated year-round, not just during one month each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was \u003ca href=\"https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carter-G-Woodson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carter G. Woodson\u003c/a>, the “father of Black history,” who first set out in 1926 to designate a time to promote and educate people about Black history and culture, according to W. Marvin Dulaney. He is a historian and the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (\u003ca href=\"https://asalh.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ASALH\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woodson envisioned a weeklong celebration to encourage the coordinated teaching of Black history in public schools. He designated the second week of February as Negro History Week and galvanized fellow historians through the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which he founded in 1915. (ASNLH later became ASALH.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea wasn’t to place limitations but really to focus and broaden the nation’s consciousness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Woodson’s goal from the very beginning was to make the celebration of Black history in the field of history a ‘serious area of study,’ ” said Albert Broussard, a professor of Afro-American history at Texas A&M University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea eventually grew in acceptance, and by the late 1960s, Negro History Week had evolved into what is now known as Black History Month. Protests around racial injustice, inequality and anti-imperialism that were occurring in many parts of the U.S. were pivotal to the change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colleges and universities also began to hold commemorations, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kent.edu/cas/did-you-know#:~:text=In%20February%201970%2C%20Kent%20State,which%20was%20established%20in%201976.&text=Since%201976%2C%20each%20president%20has,Month%20and%20endorsed%20a%20theme.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kent State University\u003c/a> being one of the first, according to Kaplan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fifty years after the first celebrations, President Gerald R. Ford officially recognized Black History Month during the country’s 1976 bicentennial. Ford called upon Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history,” History.com\u003ca href=\"https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> reports\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Why February was chosen as Black History Month\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13874566']February was chosen primarily because the second week of the month coincides with the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln was influential in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.biography.com/us-president/abraham-lincoln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">emancipation of slaves\u003c/a>, and Douglass, a former slave, was a prominent leader in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/frederick-douglass\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">abolitionist movement\u003c/a>, which fought to end slavery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lincoln and Douglass were each born in the second week of February, so it was traditionally a time when African Americans would hold celebrations in honor of emancipation, Kaplan said. (Douglass’ exact date of birth wasn’t recorded, but he came to celebrate it on Feb. 14.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thus, Woodson created Negro History Week around the two birthdays as a way of “commemorating the black past,” according to \u003ca href=\"https://asalh.org/about-us/origins-of-black-history-month/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ASALH\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Forty years after Ford formally recognized Black History Month, it was Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, who \u003ca href=\"https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/02/18/remarks-president-black-history-month-reception\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">delivered a message\u003c/a> of his own from the White House, a place built by slaves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13908790\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13908790\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-800x443.png\" alt=\"Barack and Michelle Obama stand on stage in front of a golden yellow curtain and American flag, while a packed audience holds up cell phones to take their photo.\" width=\"800\" height=\"443\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-800x443.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-1020x565.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-160x89.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-768x426.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-1536x851.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-672x372.png 672w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-1038x576.png 1038w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM.png 1674w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama host the annual reception for Black History Month at the White House on Feb. 18, 2016. \u003ccite>(Mike Theiler/Pool/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Black History Month shouldn’t be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington or from some of our sports heroes,” Obama said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s about the lived, shared experience of all African Americans, high and low, famous and obscure, and how those experiences have shaped and challenged and ultimately strengthened America,” he continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Canada also commemorates Black History Month in February, while the U.K. and \u003ca href=\"https://www.irishcentral.com/news/how-ireland-is-celebrating-national-black-history-month\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ireland\u003c/a> celebrate it in October.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>There’s a new theme every year\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>ASALH designates a \u003ca href=\"https://asalh.org/black-history-themes/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new theme\u003c/a> for Black History Month each year, in keeping with the practice Woodson established for Negro History Week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13875319']This year’s Black Health and Wellness theme is particularly appropriate, Dulaney said, as the U.S. continues to fight the coronavirus pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As [Black people], we have terrible health outcomes, and even the coronavirus has been affecting us disproportionately in terms of those of us who are catching it,” Dulaney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s never been a time where Black people and others should not celebrate Black history,” Broussard said. “Given the current racial climate, the racial reckoning that began in wake of George Floyd’s murder … this is an opportunity to learn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Here%27s+the+story+behind+Black+History+Month+%E2%80%94+and+why+it%27s+celebrated+in+February&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>This year’s theme, \u003ca href=\"https://asalh.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2022-Black-History-Theme-Executive-Summary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Black Health and Wellness\u003c/a>, pays homage to medical scholars and health care providers. The theme is especially timely as we enter the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected minority communities and placed \u003ca href=\"https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-02-01/black-doctors-covid-burden-patients-social-ills-and-workplace-bigotry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unique burdens\u003c/a> on Black health care professionals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no American history without African American history,” said Sara Clarke Kaplan, executive director of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.american.edu/centers/antiracism/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Antiracist Research & Policy Center\u003c/a> at American University in Washington, D.C. The Black experience, she said, is embedded in “everything we think of as ‘American history.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>First, there was Negro History Week\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13908786\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13908786\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/CarterGWoodson_custom-d5d1457f0e2a1e5ffb5c73df29901e26f8aade17.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white portrait of a young Black man wearing a smart suit jacket, tie and starched white shirt.\" width=\"200\" height=\"268\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/CarterGWoodson_custom-d5d1457f0e2a1e5ffb5c73df29901e26f8aade17.jpg 200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/CarterGWoodson_custom-d5d1457f0e2a1e5ffb5c73df29901e26f8aade17-160x214.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) was an American historian, a scholar and the founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Woodson was instrumental in launching Negro History Week in 1926. \u003ccite>(Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Critics have long argued that Black history should be taught and celebrated year-round, not just during one month each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was \u003ca href=\"https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carter-G-Woodson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carter G. Woodson\u003c/a>, the “father of Black history,” who first set out in 1926 to designate a time to promote and educate people about Black history and culture, according to W. Marvin Dulaney. He is a historian and the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (\u003ca href=\"https://asalh.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ASALH\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woodson envisioned a weeklong celebration to encourage the coordinated teaching of Black history in public schools. He designated the second week of February as Negro History Week and galvanized fellow historians through the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which he founded in 1915. (ASNLH later became ASALH.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea wasn’t to place limitations but really to focus and broaden the nation’s consciousness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Woodson’s goal from the very beginning was to make the celebration of Black history in the field of history a ‘serious area of study,’ ” said Albert Broussard, a professor of Afro-American history at Texas A&M University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea eventually grew in acceptance, and by the late 1960s, Negro History Week had evolved into what is now known as Black History Month. Protests around racial injustice, inequality and anti-imperialism that were occurring in many parts of the U.S. were pivotal to the change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colleges and universities also began to hold commemorations, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kent.edu/cas/did-you-know#:~:text=In%20February%201970%2C%20Kent%20State,which%20was%20established%20in%201976.&text=Since%201976%2C%20each%20president%20has,Month%20and%20endorsed%20a%20theme.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kent State University\u003c/a> being one of the first, according to Kaplan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fifty years after the first celebrations, President Gerald R. Ford officially recognized Black History Month during the country’s 1976 bicentennial. Ford called upon Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history,” History.com\u003ca href=\"https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> reports\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Why February was chosen as Black History Month\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>February was chosen primarily because the second week of the month coincides with the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln was influential in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.biography.com/us-president/abraham-lincoln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">emancipation of slaves\u003c/a>, and Douglass, a former slave, was a prominent leader in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/frederick-douglass\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">abolitionist movement\u003c/a>, which fought to end slavery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lincoln and Douglass were each born in the second week of February, so it was traditionally a time when African Americans would hold celebrations in honor of emancipation, Kaplan said. (Douglass’ exact date of birth wasn’t recorded, but he came to celebrate it on Feb. 14.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thus, Woodson created Negro History Week around the two birthdays as a way of “commemorating the black past,” according to \u003ca href=\"https://asalh.org/about-us/origins-of-black-history-month/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ASALH\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Forty years after Ford formally recognized Black History Month, it was Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, who \u003ca href=\"https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/02/18/remarks-president-black-history-month-reception\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">delivered a message\u003c/a> of his own from the White House, a place built by slaves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13908790\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13908790\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-800x443.png\" alt=\"Barack and Michelle Obama stand on stage in front of a golden yellow curtain and American flag, while a packed audience holds up cell phones to take their photo.\" width=\"800\" height=\"443\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-800x443.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-1020x565.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-160x89.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-768x426.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-1536x851.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-672x372.png 672w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM-1038x576.png 1038w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-01-at-12.18.45-PM.png 1674w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama host the annual reception for Black History Month at the White House on Feb. 18, 2016. \u003ccite>(Mike Theiler/Pool/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Black History Month shouldn’t be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington or from some of our sports heroes,” Obama said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s about the lived, shared experience of all African Americans, high and low, famous and obscure, and how those experiences have shaped and challenged and ultimately strengthened America,” he continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Canada also commemorates Black History Month in February, while the U.K. and \u003ca href=\"https://www.irishcentral.com/news/how-ireland-is-celebrating-national-black-history-month\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ireland\u003c/a> celebrate it in October.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>There’s a new theme every year\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>ASALH designates a \u003ca href=\"https://asalh.org/black-history-themes/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new theme\u003c/a> for Black History Month each year, in keeping with the practice Woodson established for Negro History Week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>This year’s Black Health and Wellness theme is particularly appropriate, Dulaney said, as the U.S. continues to fight the coronavirus pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As [Black people], we have terrible health outcomes, and even the coronavirus has been affecting us disproportionately in terms of those of us who are catching it,” Dulaney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s never been a time where Black people and others should not celebrate Black history,” Broussard said. “Given the current racial climate, the racial reckoning that began in wake of George Floyd’s murder … this is an opportunity to learn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Here%27s+the+story+behind+Black+History+Month+%E2%80%94+and+why+it%27s+celebrated+in+February&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Poly Styrene Documentary ‘I Am a Cliché’ is Much More Than a Punk Profile",
"headTitle": "Poly Styrene Documentary ‘I Am a Cliché’ is Much More Than a Punk Profile | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Ostensibly, \u003cem>I Am a Cliché\u003c/em> is a profile of British punk icon Poly Styrene, who founded and fronted X-Ray Spex between 1976 and ’79. But this 95-minute documentary, directed by Poly’s daughter \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/celestabella/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Celeste Bell-Dos Santos\u003c/a> and filmmaker \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7098521/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul Sng\u003c/a>, proves to be much, much more than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13902953']\u003cem>Cliché\u003c/em> unpacks a lot. It’s about art on the margins. It’s about the race and gender barriers that have historically policed popular culture. It’s about mental illness, the stigma it carries, and society’s reluctance to deal with it. It’s about dysfunctional families and finding love. And, most surprisingly of all—because of Poly Styrene’s lifelong fear of a culture built on plastic and artifice—it’s about now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sounds like a lot. Maybe too much. But nothing about \u003cem>I Am a Cliché\u003c/em> feels in the least bit labored. It moves with ease and grace thanks in large part to the forthright narration and emotional grounding provided by Celeste. Styrene’s daughter—who spent portions of her childhood terrified of her own mother—is determined not just to tell her mother’s story, but also to grant the singer a new degree of understanding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stXSFuUOdeU\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poly Styrene’s story starts out simply enough: mixed-race girl grows up in working-class neighborhood of South London during a turbulent time in Britain. She discovers punk, takes the initiative to form a band, smashes expectations and breaks boundaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The impact of Poly—staunchly unconventional, even in a sea of snarling punks—is worth pausing on to appreciate. Rhoda Dakar of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bodysnatchers_(band)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Bodysnatchers\u003c/a> explains that, in some ways, she and Poly were readily accepted into a punk scene dominated by white men, precisely for the ways that they didn’t fit into it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Back then,” Dakar explains, “it was fairly unusual to be biracial. In a way, we were embraced by punk because it was full of people that nobody else wanted. We were welcomed because we were already outsiders.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is Dakar and Poly’s other female peers in \u003cem>Cliché\u003c/em>, who best express the quagmire of being a woman in punk in 1970s Britain. Gina Birch from \u003ca href=\"http://www.theraincoats.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Raincoats\u003c/a> says: “A lot of men in the media didn’t want women to step into that place. To be given more power and more say and more visibility.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writer \u003ca href=\"https://www.viviengoldman.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vivien Goldman\u003c/a> notes: “Everyone always talks about ‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogypBUCb7DA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oh Bondage Up Yours\u003c/a>’ because, in a way, that sound cut through a sort of glass ceiling of what women singers could do with their voice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUBXwxjoAus\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond her fearless on-stage persona, Poly was sensitive, empathic and deeply philosophical. She worried about humanity’s future; she worried about a life lived without substance. And unrelenting, sexist scrutiny of her body and image in the music press made her worry she wasn’t good enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13852873']“She felt like journalists were celebrating her by insinuating that she was unattractive and overweight,” Celeste remembers. “[They were] totally not getting what she was trying to achieve by choosing not to overexpose her voluptuous form on stage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poly’s situation was further destabilized by the fact that she was bipolar but initially misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. All of those elements together made the chaos and propulsion of touring particularly difficult for her. This became very apparent in 1977 when X-Ray Spex spent time in New York and played the legendary punk venue CBGB. (Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore was in attendance and the memories he shares of the show in \u003cem>Cliché\u003c/em> are pure gold.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13907828\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13907828\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-800x538.png\" alt=\"The singer for X-Ray Spex, wearing a red and yellow band jacket, gazes into a mirror and applies make-up to her cheeks.\" width=\"800\" height=\"538\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-800x538.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-1020x687.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-160x108.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-768x517.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-1536x1034.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-2048x1379.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-1920x1292.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poly Styrene getting ready to perform, sometime in the late 1970s. \u003ccite>('I Am a Cliché')\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the rest of her band simply found New York fascinating and fun, Poly was so overwhelmed by the rampant consumerism, seedy underbelly and drug culture of the city that she never quite recovered from the trip. Celeste says New York annihilated the last shreds of “whatever innocence [Poly Styrene] had left.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Poly’s own writings prove it. After returning to London, she wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>New York totally blew me apart. I saw everything I’d been writing about, but extreme and for real. For them it wasn’t a joke, it was the way they lived. For me, it was all a joke … It’s so bad that you think ‘God, if that’s what it’s gonna be like, I don’t want it.’ The weird thing about all the plastic is that people don’t actually like it. But in order to cope with it, they develop a perverse kind of fondness for it. Which is what I did … That was what was so frightening about New York.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Viewed from 2022, Poly’s fears about the future—and in particular a culture dominated by plastic (in all senses of the word)—seem positively prophetic. That they were shrugged off by most people in her own time can’t help but feel tragic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1979, Poly’s inner struggles led her to break up the band at the peak of its powers. “Poly Styrene had to die,” Celeste explains, “so that Marianne Elliott [Styrene’s real name] could survive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a time after X-Ray Spex, Celeste and her mother lived in a Hare Krishna community. Later, the two lived alone and Poly lapsed into a severe state of depression. Celeste describes being hungry and neglected to the degree that, at the age of eight, she climbed out of a window to get to the social service employees who had come to check on her. Celeste later declared in court that she would rather live with her grandmother—a choice that caused long-term rifts in the family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13894169']Almost a decade before Poly’s death from cancer in 2011, mother and daughter reunited and became close. But much remained a mystery about Poly when Celeste suddenly lost her. “By the time I started to really appreciate how lucky I was to have such a remarkable woman as a mother and a role model,” Celeste says, “it was too late. She was leaving her body.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it sounds like I’ve told you the whole story laid bare in \u003cem>I Am a Cliché\u003c/em>, fear not—I’ve barely scratched the surface. I haven’t yet mentioned that it’s also a brilliant snapshot of British punk in its late-’70s heyday. Or that it’s about the importance of community, empathy and tolerance. Or that, at its core, it’s a beautiful meditation on what parents and children owe to one other. More than that, it’s about the tiny earthquakes that rumble around the world and forever change it when marginalized people elbow their way into closed-off spaces, and force other people to listen to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poly Styrene was one of those people. Her legacy is bigger than you might think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘I Am a Cliché’ arrives in movie theaters across the U.S. on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022. It will be available on demand starting Feb. 4, and begins streaming on Showtime in June. \u003ca href=\"https://www.polystyrenefilm.net/release\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Ostensibly, \u003cem>I Am a Cliché\u003c/em> is a profile of British punk icon Poly Styrene, who founded and fronted X-Ray Spex between 1976 and ’79. But this 95-minute documentary, directed by Poly’s daughter \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/celestabella/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Celeste Bell-Dos Santos\u003c/a> and filmmaker \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7098521/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul Sng\u003c/a>, proves to be much, much more than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cem>Cliché\u003c/em> unpacks a lot. It’s about art on the margins. It’s about the race and gender barriers that have historically policed popular culture. It’s about mental illness, the stigma it carries, and society’s reluctance to deal with it. It’s about dysfunctional families and finding love. And, most surprisingly of all—because of Poly Styrene’s lifelong fear of a culture built on plastic and artifice—it’s about now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sounds like a lot. Maybe too much. But nothing about \u003cem>I Am a Cliché\u003c/em> feels in the least bit labored. It moves with ease and grace thanks in large part to the forthright narration and emotional grounding provided by Celeste. Styrene’s daughter—who spent portions of her childhood terrified of her own mother—is determined not just to tell her mother’s story, but also to grant the singer a new degree of understanding.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/stXSFuUOdeU'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/stXSFuUOdeU'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Poly Styrene’s story starts out simply enough: mixed-race girl grows up in working-class neighborhood of South London during a turbulent time in Britain. She discovers punk, takes the initiative to form a band, smashes expectations and breaks boundaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The impact of Poly—staunchly unconventional, even in a sea of snarling punks—is worth pausing on to appreciate. Rhoda Dakar of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bodysnatchers_(band)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Bodysnatchers\u003c/a> explains that, in some ways, she and Poly were readily accepted into a punk scene dominated by white men, precisely for the ways that they didn’t fit into it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Back then,” Dakar explains, “it was fairly unusual to be biracial. In a way, we were embraced by punk because it was full of people that nobody else wanted. We were welcomed because we were already outsiders.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is Dakar and Poly’s other female peers in \u003cem>Cliché\u003c/em>, who best express the quagmire of being a woman in punk in 1970s Britain. Gina Birch from \u003ca href=\"http://www.theraincoats.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Raincoats\u003c/a> says: “A lot of men in the media didn’t want women to step into that place. To be given more power and more say and more visibility.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writer \u003ca href=\"https://www.viviengoldman.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vivien Goldman\u003c/a> notes: “Everyone always talks about ‘\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogypBUCb7DA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oh Bondage Up Yours\u003c/a>’ because, in a way, that sound cut through a sort of glass ceiling of what women singers could do with their voice.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/RUBXwxjoAus'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/RUBXwxjoAus'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Beyond her fearless on-stage persona, Poly was sensitive, empathic and deeply philosophical. She worried about humanity’s future; she worried about a life lived without substance. And unrelenting, sexist scrutiny of her body and image in the music press made her worry she wasn’t good enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“She felt like journalists were celebrating her by insinuating that she was unattractive and overweight,” Celeste remembers. “[They were] totally not getting what she was trying to achieve by choosing not to overexpose her voluptuous form on stage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poly’s situation was further destabilized by the fact that she was bipolar but initially misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. All of those elements together made the chaos and propulsion of touring particularly difficult for her. This became very apparent in 1977 when X-Ray Spex spent time in New York and played the legendary punk venue CBGB. (Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore was in attendance and the memories he shares of the show in \u003cem>Cliché\u003c/em> are pure gold.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13907828\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13907828\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-800x538.png\" alt=\"The singer for X-Ray Spex, wearing a red and yellow band jacket, gazes into a mirror and applies make-up to her cheeks.\" width=\"800\" height=\"538\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-800x538.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-1020x687.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-160x108.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-768x517.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-1536x1034.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-2048x1379.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Poly-mirror-1920x1292.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poly Styrene getting ready to perform, sometime in the late 1970s. \u003ccite>('I Am a Cliché')\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the rest of her band simply found New York fascinating and fun, Poly was so overwhelmed by the rampant consumerism, seedy underbelly and drug culture of the city that she never quite recovered from the trip. Celeste says New York annihilated the last shreds of “whatever innocence [Poly Styrene] had left.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Poly’s own writings prove it. After returning to London, she wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>New York totally blew me apart. I saw everything I’d been writing about, but extreme and for real. For them it wasn’t a joke, it was the way they lived. For me, it was all a joke … It’s so bad that you think ‘God, if that’s what it’s gonna be like, I don’t want it.’ The weird thing about all the plastic is that people don’t actually like it. But in order to cope with it, they develop a perverse kind of fondness for it. Which is what I did … That was what was so frightening about New York.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Viewed from 2022, Poly’s fears about the future—and in particular a culture dominated by plastic (in all senses of the word)—seem positively prophetic. That they were shrugged off by most people in her own time can’t help but feel tragic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1979, Poly’s inner struggles led her to break up the band at the peak of its powers. “Poly Styrene had to die,” Celeste explains, “so that Marianne Elliott [Styrene’s real name] could survive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a time after X-Ray Spex, Celeste and her mother lived in a Hare Krishna community. Later, the two lived alone and Poly lapsed into a severe state of depression. Celeste describes being hungry and neglected to the degree that, at the age of eight, she climbed out of a window to get to the social service employees who had come to check on her. Celeste later declared in court that she would rather live with her grandmother—a choice that caused long-term rifts in the family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Almost a decade before Poly’s death from cancer in 2011, mother and daughter reunited and became close. But much remained a mystery about Poly when Celeste suddenly lost her. “By the time I started to really appreciate how lucky I was to have such a remarkable woman as a mother and a role model,” Celeste says, “it was too late. She was leaving her body.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it sounds like I’ve told you the whole story laid bare in \u003cem>I Am a Cliché\u003c/em>, fear not—I’ve barely scratched the surface. I haven’t yet mentioned that it’s also a brilliant snapshot of British punk in its late-’70s heyday. Or that it’s about the importance of community, empathy and tolerance. Or that, at its core, it’s a beautiful meditation on what parents and children owe to one other. More than that, it’s about the tiny earthquakes that rumble around the world and forever change it when marginalized people elbow their way into closed-off spaces, and force other people to listen to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Poly Styrene was one of those people. Her legacy is bigger than you might think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘I Am a Cliché’ arrives in movie theaters across the U.S. on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022. It will be available on demand starting Feb. 4, and begins streaming on Showtime in June. \u003ca href=\"https://www.polystyrenefilm.net/release\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "the-pistol-packing-gold-rush-gambler-who-beat-men-at-their-own-game",
"title": "The Pistol-Packing Gold Rush Gambler Who Beat Men at Their Own Game",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s Eleanor Dumont walked home alone one night after a successful evening of gambling, her path was suddenly blocked by two men. Holding her at gunpoint, the pair demanded she hand over her purse or suffer the consequences. Dumont nodded, maintaining the trademark cool that local gold rush miners knew her for, and reached into her skirt. Rather than pulling out her winnings, she instead retrieved her derringer pistol. She quickly shot the man with the gun, while her other assailant fled in fear. Then Dumont continued her journey home, without a hair out of place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was life in the Wild West, and Madame Eleanor Dumont had—by then—learned the hard way how to deal with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Frenchwoman—whose real name was Simone Jules—had arrived in San Francisco in 1850, aged 21, and immediately started work as a professional gambler. She was the only woman to deal cards at the Bella Union Hotel (a privilege not afforded to women on the Las Vegas strip until 1971). She was an elegant presence in the Portsmouth Square establishment—always well-dressed and quick to find an easy rapport with the customers. Not only was Dumont enormously skilled with a card deck, she was also an excellent conversationalist. There was never a dull moment at her table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13908397\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13908397\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-800x570.png\" alt=\"A row of Gold Rush era store fronts line a street with sparsely populated hills behind.\" width=\"800\" height=\"570\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-800x570.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-1020x727.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-160x114.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-768x547.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-1536x1095.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square.png 1692w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Bella Union Hotel, on the north side of Portsmouth Square, as seen in 1855. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Despite her popularity, Dumont lost her job at the hotel after she was accused of hustling players. In all likelihood, this was the result of a disgruntled guest who underestimated Dumont’s skill level and resented losing to a woman. Outside of the Bella Union, Dumont had a lifelong reputation for playing a fair game, and handing over winnings graciously when they were due.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dumont’s firing may also have been influenced by the stereotypes about French women that were pervasive in San Francisco at the time. William Perkins, a Canadian miner and merchant who \u003ca href=\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/three-years-in-california-william-perkins-journal-of-life-at-sonora-1849-1852/oclc/555460\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">documented his travels across the United States between 1849 and 1852\u003c/a>, once wrote: “French women … are one of the peculiar features of California society. They are to be met with every where, and every where they are the same: money making, unscrupulous, [but] outwardly well-behaved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Bella Union, Dumont knew instinctively it was time to strike out on her own. So in 1854, she arrived by stagecoach to Nevada City—a booming mining town where gold nuggets were plentiful, and miners were starved of female company. Though the move would go on to be a winning combination for Dumont, locals greeted her incredulously at first. They simply couldn’t figure out why a young woman, dressed in finery, would be walking up and down Broad Street on her own for hours on end. She was looking for the perfect storefront to open a casino, but one confused woman reportedly commented: “There’s got to be some bad in a girl with all her charms who seems to have nothing to do but strut up and down main street.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13902628']Once Dumont had opened what one newspaper ad described as the “best gambling emporium in Northern California,” it all made sense. Dumont called her casino Vingt-et-Un (21 in French) after her favorite card game—a precursor to blackjack. And there was nothing like it in Nevada City, or any other mining town for that matter. The grand, 50 ft.–long room was decorated with luxurious carpets, gas-powered chandeliers and plush furnishings. Rare liquors and wines were served while a small orchestra played. Gamblers were offered free champagne upon arrival. Dumont enforced a dress code (jackets, ties and hats) and strictly prohibited swearing, smoking, spitting and fighting. She was bringing class to the rough-and-tumble mining community—and they absolutely loved it. Not least because it offered the opportunity to play against the mysterious Madame Dumont herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She possessed a peculiar power over the roughest of her customers,” the \u003cem>Hamilton County Democrat\u003c/em> reported in Oct. 1879. “It became a saying of theirs that there was more satisfaction in playing against the Madame’s game and losing, than in winning at any other game.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n the course of running Vingt-et-Un\u003cem>,\u003c/em> Dumont met a fellow professional gambler named David Tobin. The two hit it off, became romantically involved, and she soon invited him to co-manage the casino. Partnering with Tobin enabled Dumont to broaden her horizons and open a second venue. Dumont’s Place, as it was called, specialized in games not played at Vingt-et-Un, including keno, roulette, poker, chuck-a-luck (a game of chance played with three dice) and the most popular game of the day, faro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13908457\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 440px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13908457\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/440px-Faro_card_game.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"440\" height=\"309\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/440px-Faro_card_game.jpg 440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/440px-Faro_card_game-160x112.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gold rush gamblers playing a game of Faro in Tombstone, Arizona—where Eleanor Dumont lived, and gambled, for a time. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The couple’s success was short-lived. By 1857, as gold lodes dwindled, so did casino customers. Dumont and Tobin cut their losses, sold the businesses and parted ways. Tobin headed to New York where he died a very wealthy man in 1865. Dumont followed the miners to Columbia, California where a new wealth of gold was being uncovered. Dumont set up a gambling table inside a hotel and, as with Nevada City, she made a good living as long as the miners did. Once gold supplies petered out and prospectors began moving on, Dumont faithfully and fearlessly followed. She would go on to travel extensively in pursuit of mining money, spending the 1860s bouncing between Virginia City and Pioche in Nevada, Fort Benton and Bannack in Montana, Helena and Salmon in Idaho, Colorado City in Arizona, and Corinne and Silver City in Utah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of this was in Dumont’s original life plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dumont had made an attempt to embrace a quieter life at the end of the 1850s. She had saved enough money by that time to buy herself a ranch in Carson City, Nevada—and she was determined to get off the road and make a go of it. It might just have worked out if she hadn’t fallen in love with a saloon owner named Jack McKnight. McKnight told Dumont he was a cattleman who could turn the ranch into a successful business. Swept up in what seemed like a happy ending, Dumont married McKnight and signed over the ranch to him so he could manage it for her. Within a month, he had sold the property and skipped town with everything Dumont had worked so hard for. She had no choice but to hit the road once more, and she never again attempted to settle down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13874853']Something about the experience with McKnight hardened Dumont. She became a heavy drinker, took less care with her appearance and was outwardly more cynical. She started carrying a gun wherever she went, and when fate crossed her path with McKnight’s once more, she wasted no time in shooting him dead. Dumont was never charged with any crime, however. Some said there simply wasn’t enough evidence to charge her; others claimed the sheriff knew what McKnight had done to Dumont and thought he had it coming. Only many years after the crime did Dumont admit to the murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dumont’s newfound toughness found its way into her card games. She is said to have horsewhipped one cheating gambler during a game in Colorado City. Rumors were rife that after one of her customers angrily accused her of not really being French, she had him thrown through a door. In Fort Benton, Dumont’s gambling house, the Cosmopolitan, stood right in the middle of what was commonly referred to at the time as “the bloodiest block in the West”—a lawless cluster of bars, brothels and casinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One night on that chaotic street, word began to spread that trouble was on the horizon—a steamboat said to be carrying many passengers with smallpox was about to dock, bringing the feared disease to Fort Benton. Dumont sprang into action, and raced down to the docks with a pistol in each hand. When the boat arrived, she threatened to shoot the captain if he attempted to dock. Needless to say, he abandoned the plan and turned around. Dumont made her way back to the Cosmopolitan, told her customers the danger had passed and bought everyone drinks on the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]D[/dropcap]espite Dumont’s necessary assimilation into the harshest of environments, she never did lose her charm. Throughout her life, she retained a knack for defusing dangerous situations using only her grace and wit. On one occasion, she is said to have single-handedly prevented a riot that was brewing amongst an angry mob of unemployed miners and Mexican laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On another, the \u003cem>Hamilton County Democrat\u003c/em> reported:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>In Pioche, the room in which she was dealing her game became filled with a noisy, quarreling crowd of miners, maddened with drink and flourishing pistols … The bar keepers and faro dealers were fruitlessly trying to quiet the crowd, when Madame Dumont … quietly approached the noisies and laughingly removing them for ungallant conduct, succeeded in clearing the room and avoiding a bloody row.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>By 1864, while residing in Bannack, Dumont decided to open a brothel to supplement her gambling earnings. It was a far cry from Vingt-et-Un, where women had been banned, lest prostution lure her customers away from the card table. In Bannack, Dumont drummed up brothel business by driving her girls around town in carriages, never missing the construction camps along the route of the Union Pacific Railroad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four years later, she took a chance on the Kootenai Mines in British Columbia. But as soon as she arrived and started building a new casino, the miners and prospectors found a more promising lode down the line and moved on. Dumont quickly ran out of cash and skipped town by mule train, without telling the contractors who’d been building her new venue. Dumont made her way to central Montana, where she made herself a fast fortune at the mining camps. One year later, she tracked down her old contractors in Reynolds City and paid them back in full, in what \u003cem>The Butte Miner\u003c/em> newspaper later referred to as “bankable gold dust.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13894842']It was in middle age that Dumont acquired the cruel nickname that never left her: Madame Mustache. As she aged, the hair on Dumont’s upper lip had darkened and, after an angry customer threw the insult at her one day, the sobriquet stuck and followed her around the country wherever she traveled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s almost impossible to map Dumont’s exact movements during the 1870s—except to say that she showed up at card tables across the west. Boise City, Oklahoma. Cheyenne, Wyoming. Blackfoot City, Idaho. Eureka, Nevada. Tombstone, Arizona. Deadwood, South Dakota—where Dumont, incidentally, befriended Calamity Jane and taught her how to gamble. No wonder the \u003cem>Bodie Standard\u003c/em> reported in 1878 that, “Probably no woman on the Pacific Coast is better known.” And they were right. In July of that same year, a single week-long visit to Modesto earned Dumont two separate articles in the \u003cem>Modesto Herald \u003c/em>newspaper. She was merely passing through on her way to Bodie—the only town she never left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After arriving in Bodie, Dumont began dealing 21 at the Magnolia saloon on Main Street. She was welcomed warmly. “She appears young as ever and those who knew her ever so many years ago would instantly recognize her now,” the \u003cem>Bodie Standard\u003c/em> cheerfully reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the morning of Sept. 8, 1879, a sheep herder discovered Eleanor Dumont’s lifeless body, head resting on a stone, a mile outside of Bodie. She had killed herself by drinking a combination of morphine and red wine, and left a note addressed to the public administrator. In it, she gave instructions about what to do with her worldly possessions and stated simply that she was “tired of life.” Friends reported that she had borrowed $300 to gamble with the night before (over $8,000 in today’s money), and was bereft after losing it all within a few short hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='news_11640709']The outpouring prompted by the death of Dumont was immense. Local women lovingly prepared her body for burial, while miners raised money to give her an appropriate sendoff. \u003cem>The Bridgeport Chronicle Union\u003c/em> wrote: “It is said that of the hundreds of funerals held in the mining sample, that of Madame Mustache was the largest. The gamblers of the place buried her with all honors and carriages were brought in from Carson City, NV, a distance of 120 miles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dumont was buried in the section of Bodie’s cemetery reserved for outcasts and sinners. Still, newspapers across the country reported Dumont’s death with reverence and respect. The \u003cem>Bodie Morning News\u003c/em> reported that she “bore a character of virtue possessed by few in her line.” The \u003cem>Hamilton County Democrat\u003c/em> wrote: “Despite her strange surrounding and unusual mode of living, [Dumont] possessed the respect, as well as the admiration of her rough companions for years.” Montana’s \u003cem>Butte Miner\u003c/em> noted: “Truthful and honest, whatever other faults she might have had, always smiling, never forgetting the politeness of her native France, and her purse ever open at the appeal of sickness or suffering, Madame Mustache leaves friends in almost every class of Western society.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after her death, the\u003cem> San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> quoted a miner who had known and loved Dumont. He perhaps summed up her life best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Her life was as square a game as was ever dealt. The world played against her with all sorts of combinations but she generally beat it. The turn was called on her at last for a few paltry hundreds … and she passed in her checks, game to the last.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>To learn about other Rebel Girls from Bay Area History, visit the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/rebelgirls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebel Girls homepage\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A book celebrating women from the Rebel Girls series, \u003ca href=\"https://citylights.com/politics-current-events-history/unsung-heroines35-women-who-changed/\">‘Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area,’\u003c/a> is available now from City Lights.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Frenchwoman Eleanor Dumont—nicknamed 'Madame Mustache'—followed miners all over the West, winning their gold in card games. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">A\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>s Eleanor Dumont walked home alone one night after a successful evening of gambling, her path was suddenly blocked by two men. Holding her at gunpoint, the pair demanded she hand over her purse or suffer the consequences. Dumont nodded, maintaining the trademark cool that local gold rush miners knew her for, and reached into her skirt. Rather than pulling out her winnings, she instead retrieved her derringer pistol. She quickly shot the man with the gun, while her other assailant fled in fear. Then Dumont continued her journey home, without a hair out of place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was life in the Wild West, and Madame Eleanor Dumont had—by then—learned the hard way how to deal with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Frenchwoman—whose real name was Simone Jules—had arrived in San Francisco in 1850, aged 21, and immediately started work as a professional gambler. She was the only woman to deal cards at the Bella Union Hotel (a privilege not afforded to women on the Las Vegas strip until 1971). She was an elegant presence in the Portsmouth Square establishment—always well-dressed and quick to find an easy rapport with the customers. Not only was Dumont enormously skilled with a card deck, she was also an excellent conversationalist. There was never a dull moment at her table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13908397\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13908397\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-800x570.png\" alt=\"A row of Gold Rush era store fronts line a street with sparsely populated hills behind.\" width=\"800\" height=\"570\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-800x570.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-1020x727.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-160x114.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-768x547.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square-1536x1095.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/The-Bella-Union-Hotel-in-1855-on-the-Northside-of-Portsmouth-Square.png 1692w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Bella Union Hotel, on the north side of Portsmouth Square, as seen in 1855. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Despite her popularity, Dumont lost her job at the hotel after she was accused of hustling players. In all likelihood, this was the result of a disgruntled guest who underestimated Dumont’s skill level and resented losing to a woman. Outside of the Bella Union, Dumont had a lifelong reputation for playing a fair game, and handing over winnings graciously when they were due.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dumont’s firing may also have been influenced by the stereotypes about French women that were pervasive in San Francisco at the time. William Perkins, a Canadian miner and merchant who \u003ca href=\"https://www.worldcat.org/title/three-years-in-california-william-perkins-journal-of-life-at-sonora-1849-1852/oclc/555460\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">documented his travels across the United States between 1849 and 1852\u003c/a>, once wrote: “French women … are one of the peculiar features of California society. They are to be met with every where, and every where they are the same: money making, unscrupulous, [but] outwardly well-behaved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Bella Union, Dumont knew instinctively it was time to strike out on her own. So in 1854, she arrived by stagecoach to Nevada City—a booming mining town where gold nuggets were plentiful, and miners were starved of female company. Though the move would go on to be a winning combination for Dumont, locals greeted her incredulously at first. They simply couldn’t figure out why a young woman, dressed in finery, would be walking up and down Broad Street on her own for hours on end. She was looking for the perfect storefront to open a casino, but one confused woman reportedly commented: “There’s got to be some bad in a girl with all her charms who seems to have nothing to do but strut up and down main street.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Once Dumont had opened what one newspaper ad described as the “best gambling emporium in Northern California,” it all made sense. Dumont called her casino Vingt-et-Un (21 in French) after her favorite card game—a precursor to blackjack. And there was nothing like it in Nevada City, or any other mining town for that matter. The grand, 50 ft.–long room was decorated with luxurious carpets, gas-powered chandeliers and plush furnishings. Rare liquors and wines were served while a small orchestra played. Gamblers were offered free champagne upon arrival. Dumont enforced a dress code (jackets, ties and hats) and strictly prohibited swearing, smoking, spitting and fighting. She was bringing class to the rough-and-tumble mining community—and they absolutely loved it. Not least because it offered the opportunity to play against the mysterious Madame Dumont herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She possessed a peculiar power over the roughest of her customers,” the \u003cem>Hamilton County Democrat\u003c/em> reported in Oct. 1879. “It became a saying of theirs that there was more satisfaction in playing against the Madame’s game and losing, than in winning at any other game.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">I\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>n the course of running Vingt-et-Un\u003cem>,\u003c/em> Dumont met a fellow professional gambler named David Tobin. The two hit it off, became romantically involved, and she soon invited him to co-manage the casino. Partnering with Tobin enabled Dumont to broaden her horizons and open a second venue. Dumont’s Place, as it was called, specialized in games not played at Vingt-et-Un, including keno, roulette, poker, chuck-a-luck (a game of chance played with three dice) and the most popular game of the day, faro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13908457\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 440px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13908457\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/440px-Faro_card_game.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"440\" height=\"309\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/440px-Faro_card_game.jpg 440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/440px-Faro_card_game-160x112.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gold rush gamblers playing a game of Faro in Tombstone, Arizona—where Eleanor Dumont lived, and gambled, for a time. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The couple’s success was short-lived. By 1857, as gold lodes dwindled, so did casino customers. Dumont and Tobin cut their losses, sold the businesses and parted ways. Tobin headed to New York where he died a very wealthy man in 1865. Dumont followed the miners to Columbia, California where a new wealth of gold was being uncovered. Dumont set up a gambling table inside a hotel and, as with Nevada City, she made a good living as long as the miners did. Once gold supplies petered out and prospectors began moving on, Dumont faithfully and fearlessly followed. She would go on to travel extensively in pursuit of mining money, spending the 1860s bouncing between Virginia City and Pioche in Nevada, Fort Benton and Bannack in Montana, Helena and Salmon in Idaho, Colorado City in Arizona, and Corinne and Silver City in Utah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of this was in Dumont’s original life plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dumont had made an attempt to embrace a quieter life at the end of the 1850s. She had saved enough money by that time to buy herself a ranch in Carson City, Nevada—and she was determined to get off the road and make a go of it. It might just have worked out if she hadn’t fallen in love with a saloon owner named Jack McKnight. McKnight told Dumont he was a cattleman who could turn the ranch into a successful business. Swept up in what seemed like a happy ending, Dumont married McKnight and signed over the ranch to him so he could manage it for her. Within a month, he had sold the property and skipped town with everything Dumont had worked so hard for. She had no choice but to hit the road once more, and she never again attempted to settle down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Something about the experience with McKnight hardened Dumont. She became a heavy drinker, took less care with her appearance and was outwardly more cynical. She started carrying a gun wherever she went, and when fate crossed her path with McKnight’s once more, she wasted no time in shooting him dead. Dumont was never charged with any crime, however. Some said there simply wasn’t enough evidence to charge her; others claimed the sheriff knew what McKnight had done to Dumont and thought he had it coming. Only many years after the crime did Dumont admit to the murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dumont’s newfound toughness found its way into her card games. She is said to have horsewhipped one cheating gambler during a game in Colorado City. Rumors were rife that after one of her customers angrily accused her of not really being French, she had him thrown through a door. In Fort Benton, Dumont’s gambling house, the Cosmopolitan, stood right in the middle of what was commonly referred to at the time as “the bloodiest block in the West”—a lawless cluster of bars, brothels and casinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One night on that chaotic street, word began to spread that trouble was on the horizon—a steamboat said to be carrying many passengers with smallpox was about to dock, bringing the feared disease to Fort Benton. Dumont sprang into action, and raced down to the docks with a pistol in each hand. When the boat arrived, she threatened to shoot the captain if he attempted to dock. Needless to say, he abandoned the plan and turned around. Dumont made her way back to the Cosmopolitan, told her customers the danger had passed and bought everyone drinks on the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">D\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>espite Dumont’s necessary assimilation into the harshest of environments, she never did lose her charm. Throughout her life, she retained a knack for defusing dangerous situations using only her grace and wit. On one occasion, she is said to have single-handedly prevented a riot that was brewing amongst an angry mob of unemployed miners and Mexican laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On another, the \u003cem>Hamilton County Democrat\u003c/em> reported:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>In Pioche, the room in which she was dealing her game became filled with a noisy, quarreling crowd of miners, maddened with drink and flourishing pistols … The bar keepers and faro dealers were fruitlessly trying to quiet the crowd, when Madame Dumont … quietly approached the noisies and laughingly removing them for ungallant conduct, succeeded in clearing the room and avoiding a bloody row.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>By 1864, while residing in Bannack, Dumont decided to open a brothel to supplement her gambling earnings. It was a far cry from Vingt-et-Un, where women had been banned, lest prostution lure her customers away from the card table. In Bannack, Dumont drummed up brothel business by driving her girls around town in carriages, never missing the construction camps along the route of the Union Pacific Railroad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four years later, she took a chance on the Kootenai Mines in British Columbia. But as soon as she arrived and started building a new casino, the miners and prospectors found a more promising lode down the line and moved on. Dumont quickly ran out of cash and skipped town by mule train, without telling the contractors who’d been building her new venue. Dumont made her way to central Montana, where she made herself a fast fortune at the mining camps. One year later, she tracked down her old contractors in Reynolds City and paid them back in full, in what \u003cem>The Butte Miner\u003c/em> newspaper later referred to as “bankable gold dust.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>It was in middle age that Dumont acquired the cruel nickname that never left her: Madame Mustache. As she aged, the hair on Dumont’s upper lip had darkened and, after an angry customer threw the insult at her one day, the sobriquet stuck and followed her around the country wherever she traveled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s almost impossible to map Dumont’s exact movements during the 1870s—except to say that she showed up at card tables across the west. Boise City, Oklahoma. Cheyenne, Wyoming. Blackfoot City, Idaho. Eureka, Nevada. Tombstone, Arizona. Deadwood, South Dakota—where Dumont, incidentally, befriended Calamity Jane and taught her how to gamble. No wonder the \u003cem>Bodie Standard\u003c/em> reported in 1878 that, “Probably no woman on the Pacific Coast is better known.” And they were right. In July of that same year, a single week-long visit to Modesto earned Dumont two separate articles in the \u003cem>Modesto Herald \u003c/em>newspaper. She was merely passing through on her way to Bodie—the only town she never left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After arriving in Bodie, Dumont began dealing 21 at the Magnolia saloon on Main Street. She was welcomed warmly. “She appears young as ever and those who knew her ever so many years ago would instantly recognize her now,” the \u003cem>Bodie Standard\u003c/em> cheerfully reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">O\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>n the morning of Sept. 8, 1879, a sheep herder discovered Eleanor Dumont’s lifeless body, head resting on a stone, a mile outside of Bodie. She had killed herself by drinking a combination of morphine and red wine, and left a note addressed to the public administrator. In it, she gave instructions about what to do with her worldly possessions and stated simply that she was “tired of life.” Friends reported that she had borrowed $300 to gamble with the night before (over $8,000 in today’s money), and was bereft after losing it all within a few short hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The outpouring prompted by the death of Dumont was immense. Local women lovingly prepared her body for burial, while miners raised money to give her an appropriate sendoff. \u003cem>The Bridgeport Chronicle Union\u003c/em> wrote: “It is said that of the hundreds of funerals held in the mining sample, that of Madame Mustache was the largest. The gamblers of the place buried her with all honors and carriages were brought in from Carson City, NV, a distance of 120 miles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dumont was buried in the section of Bodie’s cemetery reserved for outcasts and sinners. Still, newspapers across the country reported Dumont’s death with reverence and respect. The \u003cem>Bodie Morning News\u003c/em> reported that she “bore a character of virtue possessed by few in her line.” The \u003cem>Hamilton County Democrat\u003c/em> wrote: “Despite her strange surrounding and unusual mode of living, [Dumont] possessed the respect, as well as the admiration of her rough companions for years.” Montana’s \u003cem>Butte Miner\u003c/em> noted: “Truthful and honest, whatever other faults she might have had, always smiling, never forgetting the politeness of her native France, and her purse ever open at the appeal of sickness or suffering, Madame Mustache leaves friends in almost every class of Western society.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after her death, the\u003cem> San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> quoted a miner who had known and loved Dumont. He perhaps summed up her life best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Her life was as square a game as was ever dealt. The world played against her with all sorts of combinations but she generally beat it. The turn was called on her at last for a few paltry hundreds … and she passed in her checks, game to the last.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>To learn about other Rebel Girls from Bay Area History, visit the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/rebelgirls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebel Girls homepage\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>THE YEAR: 2022\u003cbr>\nTHE PLACE: NEW YORK CITY\u003cbr>\nTHE POPULATION: 40,000,000\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So begins the sweatiest dystopia in all of movie history, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Soylent Green\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. The 1973 movie starts as it means to go on: IN ALL CAPS AND YELLING AT YOU.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13890789']It stars Charlton Heston, an actor you may remember from such apocalypse movies as 1968’s \u003cem>Planet of the Apes\u003c/em> (intelligent primates are coming to get us!) and 1971’s \u003cem>The Omega Man\u003c/em> (germ warfare and vampires are coming to get us!). Heston’s third stab at predicting the apocalypse is probably the most realistic, however, because \u003cem>Soylent Green\u003c/em> focuses on a hopeless, relentlessly grim world that’s been ravaged by climate change. Which shouldn’t be a stretch to imagine for any Bay Area residents who lived through \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13886045/people-are-surfing-under-smoky-orange-skies-in-san-francisco\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2020’s Orange Day\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Based on Harry Harrison’s 1966 novel \u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/473850.Make_Room_Make_Room_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Make Room! Make Room!\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, the movie presents modern day New York as an overpopulated hellscape. Here, a jar of strawberry jam costs $150, and the one percent hides out in penthouses, ignoring the plight of the everyday man. It’s a world in which everyone wears masks, the only people with reliable transport are sanitation workers, and it’s hard to get up to your crappy apartment through all the random people hanging out on your front steps. In short: an incredibly accurate depiction of New York (jk NYC, jk).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13907646\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13907646\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM-800x372.png\" alt='A crowd of people, all wearing beige bonnets, gather in front of shop windows painted with the words, \"Tuesday is soylent green day.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"372\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM-800x372.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM-1020x475.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM-160x74.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM-768x357.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM.png 1384w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">If Green Day didn’t get their name from this scene in ‘Soylent Green,’ it is a terribly big coincidence… \u003ccite>('Soylent Green')\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The humans of \u003cem>Soylent Green\u003c/em> are all in competition for a very limited supply of unappetizing processed food, most of which is made from soybeans. (Ten bucks says Harry Harrison \u003cem>hated\u003c/em> tempeh.) Half the city is unemployed and living in poverty, so most have to make do with yellow soylent, soylent crumbs and soylent buns for sustenance. The thing everyone actually wants to eat is soylent green—a more nutritious product purportedly made from ocean plankton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soylent green comes in smooth flat squares and is distributed in the smogged-up city every Tuesday. When supplies run out, windows are smashed, yellow soylent is trampled underfoot and riots ensue. Police respond to this by scraping screaming people up into bulldozers and carting them away. This is the first thing I’d seen in a while that made those \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-use-unmarked-vehicles-to-grab-protesters-in-portland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">weird unmarked minivans\u003c/a> arresting people at the 2020 Portland protests seem slightly less outrageous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13907667\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13907667\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/soylent-green-riot-truck.jpg\" alt=\"An orange bulldozer scoops up a large group of people while crowds and police officers in helmets fight it out below.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/soylent-green-riot-truck.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/soylent-green-riot-truck-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/soylent-green-riot-truck-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In ‘Soylent Green,’ unruly citizens are removed via ‘scoops’ — bulldozers for humans. \u003ccite>('Soylent Green')\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The plot hinges on Heston’s grizzled investigator, Detective Thorn, trying to solve the murder of Simonson, an executive for the Soylent Corporation. Simonson was killed at home in “unit 2020” of a fancy building. (Definitive proof that 2020 has been where bad things happen since at least 1973.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In life, Simonson lived with an indentured sex slave named Shirl, whose super-demeaning professional title is “furniture.” Shirl floats around the place in low cut maxi dresses, looking longingly at men who don’t deserve it, talking too softly through pouted lips, and gazing wistfully at walls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am 99% certain Shirl is what Lana Del Rey has based her entire personality on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13907647\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13907647\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-800x334.jpg\" alt=\"A fresh-faced woman with long brown hair and a low cut blue tunic dress stands before a glass door.\" width=\"800\" height=\"334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-800x334.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-1020x425.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-768x320.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-1536x640.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shirl, played by Leigh Taylor-Young is not, in fact, Lana Del Rey. But, damn. It is close. \u003ccite>('Soylent Green')\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Shirl and the other “furniture” she’s friends with get to spend their one day off a month lounging around together looking effortlessly hot, drinking cocktails, smoking, and reading each other’s tarot cards. (Fairly accurate Gen Z vibes, if I’m honest.) After Simonson’s murder, Thorn briefly questions Shirl, then demands she have sex with him. Shirl responds to this by falling in love with Thorn—because this movie was made by men in the 1970s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thorn’s roommate, Sol (Edward G. Robinson) is older, wiser and more depressed than Thorn on account of the fact that he remembers the world as it was before the “greenhouse effect” started “burning up” the planet. Sol eventually opts to get himself euthanized, lured in by the promise of a 20-minute nature video, nice lighting, and some classical music. But it is Sol who first discovers why Simonson was murdered, and it is Sol who first discovers the secret ingredient in soylent green. (Thorn is pretty useless imo…)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13907669\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13907669\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-800x414.png\" alt=\"An old man lies on a twin bed under white sheets, watching a movie screen depicting fields of flowers. A younger man watches on from a nearby window.\" width=\"800\" height=\"414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-800x414.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-1020x528.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-160x83.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-768x397.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-1536x795.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-2048x1060.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-1920x993.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thorn finally sees Earth as it used to be, via Sol’s death chamber. \u003ccite>('Soylent Green')\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The grand finale of \u003cem>Soylent Green\u003c/em> comes as Thorn tries to tell everyone the secret ingredient of their favorite food, before it’s too late. “Soylent green is people!” he yells repeatedly in a very crowded room. “\u003cem>Soylent green is people!\u003c/em>” Unfortunately, that phrase sounds more like a philosophical concept than a warning about cannibalism, so it’s unclear if his message is received before he’s carted away on a stretcher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='pop_86219']Whether or not Thorn’s discovery changes anything in the world of \u003cem>Soylent Green\u003c/em> is not the point. The point is a warning about the exhaustion of Earth’s resources. The point is about the horrors of climate change. And the point is a 2022 in which 99% of humanity is without hope or help. And while a lot of us, two years into this relentless pandemic, think we can relate to that last point in particular, \u003cem>Soylent Green\u003c/em> is actually very good at making you grateful for what we \u003cem>do\u003c/em> have. Like places to hike and food not made of human flesh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy 2022, everyone!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Soylent Green’ is available to rent now via YouTube, Amazon Prime, Vudu and Apple TV.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_jGOKYHxaQ&t=102s\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>THE YEAR: 2022\u003cbr>\nTHE PLACE: NEW YORK CITY\u003cbr>\nTHE POPULATION: 40,000,000\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So begins the sweatiest dystopia in all of movie history, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Soylent Green\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. The 1973 movie starts as it means to go on: IN ALL CAPS AND YELLING AT YOU.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>It stars Charlton Heston, an actor you may remember from such apocalypse movies as 1968’s \u003cem>Planet of the Apes\u003c/em> (intelligent primates are coming to get us!) and 1971’s \u003cem>The Omega Man\u003c/em> (germ warfare and vampires are coming to get us!). Heston’s third stab at predicting the apocalypse is probably the most realistic, however, because \u003cem>Soylent Green\u003c/em> focuses on a hopeless, relentlessly grim world that’s been ravaged by climate change. Which shouldn’t be a stretch to imagine for any Bay Area residents who lived through \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13886045/people-are-surfing-under-smoky-orange-skies-in-san-francisco\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2020’s Orange Day\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Based on Harry Harrison’s 1966 novel \u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/473850.Make_Room_Make_Room_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Make Room! Make Room!\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, the movie presents modern day New York as an overpopulated hellscape. Here, a jar of strawberry jam costs $150, and the one percent hides out in penthouses, ignoring the plight of the everyday man. It’s a world in which everyone wears masks, the only people with reliable transport are sanitation workers, and it’s hard to get up to your crappy apartment through all the random people hanging out on your front steps. In short: an incredibly accurate depiction of New York (jk NYC, jk).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13907646\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13907646\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM-800x372.png\" alt='A crowd of people, all wearing beige bonnets, gather in front of shop windows painted with the words, \"Tuesday is soylent green day.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"372\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM-800x372.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM-1020x475.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM-160x74.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM-768x357.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-03-at-2.05.57-PM.png 1384w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">If Green Day didn’t get their name from this scene in ‘Soylent Green,’ it is a terribly big coincidence… \u003ccite>('Soylent Green')\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The humans of \u003cem>Soylent Green\u003c/em> are all in competition for a very limited supply of unappetizing processed food, most of which is made from soybeans. (Ten bucks says Harry Harrison \u003cem>hated\u003c/em> tempeh.) Half the city is unemployed and living in poverty, so most have to make do with yellow soylent, soylent crumbs and soylent buns for sustenance. The thing everyone actually wants to eat is soylent green—a more nutritious product purportedly made from ocean plankton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soylent green comes in smooth flat squares and is distributed in the smogged-up city every Tuesday. When supplies run out, windows are smashed, yellow soylent is trampled underfoot and riots ensue. Police respond to this by scraping screaming people up into bulldozers and carting them away. This is the first thing I’d seen in a while that made those \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-use-unmarked-vehicles-to-grab-protesters-in-portland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">weird unmarked minivans\u003c/a> arresting people at the 2020 Portland protests seem slightly less outrageous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13907667\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13907667\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/soylent-green-riot-truck.jpg\" alt=\"An orange bulldozer scoops up a large group of people while crowds and police officers in helmets fight it out below.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/soylent-green-riot-truck.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/soylent-green-riot-truck-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/soylent-green-riot-truck-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In ‘Soylent Green,’ unruly citizens are removed via ‘scoops’ — bulldozers for humans. \u003ccite>('Soylent Green')\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The plot hinges on Heston’s grizzled investigator, Detective Thorn, trying to solve the murder of Simonson, an executive for the Soylent Corporation. Simonson was killed at home in “unit 2020” of a fancy building. (Definitive proof that 2020 has been where bad things happen since at least 1973.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In life, Simonson lived with an indentured sex slave named Shirl, whose super-demeaning professional title is “furniture.” Shirl floats around the place in low cut maxi dresses, looking longingly at men who don’t deserve it, talking too softly through pouted lips, and gazing wistfully at walls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I am 99% certain Shirl is what Lana Del Rey has based her entire personality on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13907647\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13907647\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-800x334.jpg\" alt=\"A fresh-faced woman with long brown hair and a low cut blue tunic dress stands before a glass door.\" width=\"800\" height=\"334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-800x334.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-1020x425.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-160x67.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-768x320.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14-1536x640.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Soylent-Green-14.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shirl, played by Leigh Taylor-Young is not, in fact, Lana Del Rey. But, damn. It is close. \u003ccite>('Soylent Green')\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Shirl and the other “furniture” she’s friends with get to spend their one day off a month lounging around together looking effortlessly hot, drinking cocktails, smoking, and reading each other’s tarot cards. (Fairly accurate Gen Z vibes, if I’m honest.) After Simonson’s murder, Thorn briefly questions Shirl, then demands she have sex with him. Shirl responds to this by falling in love with Thorn—because this movie was made by men in the 1970s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thorn’s roommate, Sol (Edward G. Robinson) is older, wiser and more depressed than Thorn on account of the fact that he remembers the world as it was before the “greenhouse effect” started “burning up” the planet. Sol eventually opts to get himself euthanized, lured in by the promise of a 20-minute nature video, nice lighting, and some classical music. But it is Sol who first discovers why Simonson was murdered, and it is Sol who first discovers the secret ingredient in soylent green. (Thorn is pretty useless imo…)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13907669\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13907669\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-800x414.png\" alt=\"An old man lies on a twin bed under white sheets, watching a movie screen depicting fields of flowers. A younger man watches on from a nearby window.\" width=\"800\" height=\"414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-800x414.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-1020x528.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-160x83.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-768x397.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-1536x795.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-2048x1060.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-04-at-10.52.54-AM-1920x993.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thorn finally sees Earth as it used to be, via Sol’s death chamber. \u003ccite>('Soylent Green')\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The grand finale of \u003cem>Soylent Green\u003c/em> comes as Thorn tries to tell everyone the secret ingredient of their favorite food, before it’s too late. “Soylent green is people!” he yells repeatedly in a very crowded room. “\u003cem>Soylent green is people!\u003c/em>” Unfortunately, that phrase sounds more like a philosophical concept than a warning about cannibalism, so it’s unclear if his message is received before he’s carted away on a stretcher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Whether or not Thorn’s discovery changes anything in the world of \u003cem>Soylent Green\u003c/em> is not the point. The point is a warning about the exhaustion of Earth’s resources. The point is about the horrors of climate change. And the point is a 2022 in which 99% of humanity is without hope or help. And while a lot of us, two years into this relentless pandemic, think we can relate to that last point in particular, \u003cem>Soylent Green\u003c/em> is actually very good at making you grateful for what we \u003cem>do\u003c/em> have. Like places to hike and food not made of human flesh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy 2022, everyone!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Soylent Green’ is available to rent now via YouTube, Amazon Prime, Vudu and Apple TV.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/N_jGOKYHxaQ'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/N_jGOKYHxaQ'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "a-bay-area-mans-1953-prophecy-predicted-smartphones-video-calls-and-apple-watches",
"title": "A Bay Area Man’s 1953 ‘Prophecy’ Predicted Smartphones, Video Calls and Apple Watches",
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"content": "\u003cp>When people want to know who first predicted the age of the smartphone, a few names regularly pop up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, there’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.geekwire.com/2015/nikola-tesla-predicted-smartphones-in-1926-like-a-boss/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikola Tesla\u003c/a>, who in 1926 foretold that, “through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face-to-face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles. And the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13883118']Then there’s sci-fi author Isaac Asimov, who’s remembered for his \u003ca href=\"https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1964 op-ed\u003c/a> in the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> in which he claimed communication devices would one day enable people to “see as well as hear the person you telephone.” He also predicted that “the screen [would] be used not only to see the people you call, but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a name that almost never comes up is Mark R. Sullivan, whose astute predictions came more than a decade before Asimov’s. In the 1950s, Sullivan was acting president and director of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company. He was born in Oakland in 1896, lived in San Francisco with his wife and daughter, and worked his way to the top of his company, starting as a lowly traffic clerk at age 16. He also sat on the board of directors of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.firstamtrust.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Trust Company\u003c/a>. As such, he was well respected and regularly asked to impart his professional wisdom at business conferences and forums.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13906662\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 656px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13906662\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Examiner-July-14-1950.png\" alt=\"A bald white man with a round face wearing a suit and tie appears in newsprint.\" width=\"656\" height=\"1154\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Examiner-July-14-1950.png 656w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Examiner-July-14-1950-160x281.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 656px) 100vw, 656px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark R. Sullivan, telephone prophet, as seen in the ‘San Francisco Examiner’ on July 14, 1950. \u003ccite>(The San Francisco Examiner)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It was at one of these conferences in Pasadena, California on April 9, 1953, that Sullivan relayed his eerily accurate vision of the future of phones. Tacoma’s \u003cem>News Tribune\u003c/em> reported on the speech two days later in an article titled, “There’ll Be No Escape in Future From Telephones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sullivan was quoted as saying:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Just what form the future telephone will take is, of course, pure speculation. Here is my prophecy: In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today. It probably will require no dial or equivalent and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk. Who knows but it may actually translate from one language to another?\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>To put into context just how extraordinary Sullivan’s vision was for the period, three years earlier he appeared in the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> talking about the latest innovations in telephone technology. The advancement he was most proud of was a new device about the size of a small typewriter that automatically calculated how long people’s phone calls were. This eliminated the need for an operator to “record the call for accounting purposes.” The amount of column inches the \u003ci>Examiner\u003c/i> dedicated to the story is an indication this was Really Exciting Stuff in 1950.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13878154']That Sullivan was able—even while working with such rudimentary equipment—to envisage watch phones, video calls, and a system similar to today’s Google Translate, is fairly extraordinary. It speaks to his ability to see well beyond the technological constraints of his own lifetime. That he did so here in the Bay Area, more than two decades before the first Silicon Valley boom, only serves to make his foresight even more eerie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sullivan died, aged 89, just two years after the first commercially available cell phone hit the market. Granted, the \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Motorola DynaTAC 8000X\u003c/a> was definitely not watch-sized and cost a whopping $3,995 in 1983 (about $11,000 today), but Sullivan might have seen this development as a step towards his long-ago vision—a sign that every one of his 1953 predictions would eventually come to fruition.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When people want to know who first predicted the age of the smartphone, a few names regularly pop up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, there’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.geekwire.com/2015/nikola-tesla-predicted-smartphones-in-1926-like-a-boss/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikola Tesla\u003c/a>, who in 1926 foretold that, “through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face-to-face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles. And the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Then there’s sci-fi author Isaac Asimov, who’s remembered for his \u003ca href=\"https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1964 op-ed\u003c/a> in the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> in which he claimed communication devices would one day enable people to “see as well as hear the person you telephone.” He also predicted that “the screen [would] be used not only to see the people you call, but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a name that almost never comes up is Mark R. Sullivan, whose astute predictions came more than a decade before Asimov’s. In the 1950s, Sullivan was acting president and director of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company. He was born in Oakland in 1896, lived in San Francisco with his wife and daughter, and worked his way to the top of his company, starting as a lowly traffic clerk at age 16. He also sat on the board of directors of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.firstamtrust.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Trust Company\u003c/a>. As such, he was well respected and regularly asked to impart his professional wisdom at business conferences and forums.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13906662\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 656px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13906662\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Examiner-July-14-1950.png\" alt=\"A bald white man with a round face wearing a suit and tie appears in newsprint.\" width=\"656\" height=\"1154\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Examiner-July-14-1950.png 656w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Examiner-July-14-1950-160x281.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 656px) 100vw, 656px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark R. Sullivan, telephone prophet, as seen in the ‘San Francisco Examiner’ on July 14, 1950. \u003ccite>(The San Francisco Examiner)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It was at one of these conferences in Pasadena, California on April 9, 1953, that Sullivan relayed his eerily accurate vision of the future of phones. Tacoma’s \u003cem>News Tribune\u003c/em> reported on the speech two days later in an article titled, “There’ll Be No Escape in Future From Telephones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sullivan was quoted as saying:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Just what form the future telephone will take is, of course, pure speculation. Here is my prophecy: In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today. It probably will require no dial or equivalent and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk. Who knows but it may actually translate from one language to another?\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>To put into context just how extraordinary Sullivan’s vision was for the period, three years earlier he appeared in the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> talking about the latest innovations in telephone technology. The advancement he was most proud of was a new device about the size of a small typewriter that automatically calculated how long people’s phone calls were. This eliminated the need for an operator to “record the call for accounting purposes.” The amount of column inches the \u003ci>Examiner\u003c/i> dedicated to the story is an indication this was Really Exciting Stuff in 1950.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That Sullivan was able—even while working with such rudimentary equipment—to envisage watch phones, video calls, and a system similar to today’s Google Translate, is fairly extraordinary. It speaks to his ability to see well beyond the technological constraints of his own lifetime. That he did so here in the Bay Area, more than two decades before the first Silicon Valley boom, only serves to make his foresight even more eerie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sullivan died, aged 89, just two years after the first commercially available cell phone hit the market. Granted, the \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Motorola DynaTAC 8000X\u003c/a> was definitely not watch-sized and cost a whopping $3,995 in 1983 (about $11,000 today), but Sullivan might have seen this development as a step towards his long-ago vision—a sign that every one of his 1953 predictions would eventually come to fruition.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "These Kids Have Written the History of an Overlooked Black Female Composer",
"headTitle": "These Kids Have Written the History of an Overlooked Black Female Composer | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>For decades, it was almost impossible to hear a piece of music written by \u003ca href=\"https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/composer/4938/Florence-Price/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Florence Price\u003c/a>. Price was a Black, female composer who died in 1953. But a group of New York City middle school students had the opportunity to quite literally write Florence Price’s history. Their book, titled \u003ca href=\"https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/florence-price-book-launch-concert/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Who Is Florence Price?\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, is now out and available in stores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13906807\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13906807\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-03-at-12.04.27-PM-800x1084.png\" alt=\"Book cover featuring an illustration of a Black woman wearing a green dress playing the piano.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1084\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-03-at-12.04.27-PM-800x1084.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-03-at-12.04.27-PM-160x217.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-03-at-12.04.27-PM-768x1041.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-03-at-12.04.27-PM.png 986w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Who Is Florence Price?,’ by students of the Special Music School at Kaufman Music Center, New York..\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The kids attend \u003ca href=\"https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/sms/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Special Music School\u003c/a>, a K-12 public school in Manhattan that teaches high-level music instruction alongside academics. Shannon Potts is an English teacher there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our children are musicians, so whether or not we intentionally draw it together, they bring music into the classroom every day in the most delightful ways,” Potts says. “So if you’re talking about themes and poetry, immediately a child will qualify it with the way that a theme repeats in music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Potts assigned her sixth, seventh and eighth grade students to study Florence Price—a composer born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1887. She was the first Black woman to have her music played by a major American orchestra: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony No. 1 in 1933 and her Piano Concerto in One Movement the next year. In 1939, at her \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/748757267/lift-every-voice-marian-anderson-florence-b-price-and-the-sound-of-black-sisterh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">famed Lincoln Memorial concert\u003c/a>, the contralto Marian Anderson included Price’s arrangement of the spiritual “My Soul is Anchored in the Lord.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite Price’s talent and drive, most classical music performers and gatekeepers put her aside, and her work failed to gain traction with the large, almost exclusively white institutions that could have catapulted her to mainstream renown. As she herself wrote in a letter to famed conductor Serge Koussevitzky, “I have two handicaps—those of sex and race.” She was not wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t5nMxqxTO4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, though, there’s been a blossoming of interest in Price’s work. A recording of her symphonies by the Philadelphia Orchestra was just \u003ca href=\"https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/2022-grammys-complete-winners-nominees-nominations-list\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">nominated\u003c/a> for a Grammy. In the months ahead, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfsymphony.org/Buy-Tickets/2021-22/MORGAN-CONDUCTS-PRICE-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">her music will be performed by the San Francisco Symphony\u003c/a>, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the students began researching Price, however, they realized that although there were a \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/the-rediscovery-of-florence-price\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">few materials\u003c/a> written about her life for grown-ups, there was nothing aimed at kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That gave Potts had an idea: She would have her students write and illustrate their own book about Florence Price, and about how her music was rediscovered. As the kids’ book begins:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“In 2009, a couple bought an old house outside of Chicago. In the attic, they found boxes filled with yellowed sheets of music. Every piece was written by the same woman, Florence Price. ‘Who is Florence Price?’ they wondered…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Florence’s mind was filled with music, but she had a big question. She was a girl and her skin was a different color than so many of the composers she knew about. Could she grow up to be a famous composer, too? When Florence was only 11, her first piece was published. Was it possible that Florence’s music could change things?”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Special Music School is a partnership between the New York City Board of Education and a performing arts center called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kaufman Music Center\u003c/a>, whose executive director is Kate Sheeran. Sheeran was extremely enthusiastic about the students’ work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This beautiful book emerged that they wrote together, 45 of them together,” Sheeran recalls. “I found out about it when they brought it down to my office, and I was just floored.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheeran was so impressed that she ordered a small, self-published print run of their work. She sent it around to various people in the classical music community—including Robert Thompson, the president of \u003ca href=\"https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/composer/4938/Florence-Price/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">G. Schirmer, the company that publishes Florence Price’s music\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13881675,arts_13892514,arts_13874853']“I think it’s one of the few moments in my job where I had to cancel the next meeting and I was just kind of filled with tears,” Thompson recalls. “It was just an incredibly beautiful moment.” Thompson agreed to publish the book; all royalties will go to Kaufman Music Center, which is a non-profit organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iYxGHhCuqg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebecca Beato\u003c/a> is a 14-year-old violinist from Queens. She was also one of the lead illustrators of \u003cem>Who Is Florence Price?\u003c/em> and she says that Price has been a personal inspiration. “Her music has been out there, performed by major orchestras,” Beato says, “and she’s a woman of color, which even now—it’s like difficult to get your music shown to the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writing the book was a process of discovery, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlUudUD2Vkk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cobie Buckmire\u003c/a>, a 13-year-old pianist from Brooklyn. “I didn’t even know who she was before I started this,” he notes. “All the other famous composers are white men like Mozart, Beethoven, Bach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hazel Peebles, a 13-year-old violist from Harlem, says that you can hear Price’s personal history in her music. “It really is beautiful,” Peebles observes. “She worked in some of her history, some of her Black background into the music. I really just love that and appreciate that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What the students learned in creating this book goes far beyond music, Kate Sheeran says. “They’re also seeing that they can have a voice in shaping who writes history and who tells stories,” she says, “and that we don’t have to just accept the way music is presented to us or the way music history is presented to us—that they too can shape that. And that, to me, is the most exciting thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSmTa8hvd5U&t=1s\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We talk about representation in literature all the time,” Potts observes. “For kids to be able to become authors and activists in a way, to disrupt the story of the way that classical music is being told. They no longer, as a diverse population, become victims of a largely white society. They control the narrative. They can rewrite it. And this project, in the way it’s been received, really shows them that when they speak up, the world is ready to hear them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Potts says that the very last lines of her students’ book have already come true, thanks to their hard work and creativity. “Today, Florence’s music can be heard all around the world just like she dreamed of when she was young,” Potts reads. “If someone asks, ‘Who is Florence Price?’, you can tell them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=These+NYC+kids+have+written+the+history+of+an+overlooked+Black+female+composer&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Florence Price, born in Little Rock in 1887, was a brilliant composer who was marginalized because of her race and gender. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For decades, it was almost impossible to hear a piece of music written by \u003ca href=\"https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/composer/4938/Florence-Price/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Florence Price\u003c/a>. Price was a Black, female composer who died in 1953. But a group of New York City middle school students had the opportunity to quite literally write Florence Price’s history. Their book, titled \u003ca href=\"https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/florence-price-book-launch-concert/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Who Is Florence Price?\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, is now out and available in stores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13906807\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13906807\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-03-at-12.04.27-PM-800x1084.png\" alt=\"Book cover featuring an illustration of a Black woman wearing a green dress playing the piano.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1084\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-03-at-12.04.27-PM-800x1084.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-03-at-12.04.27-PM-160x217.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-03-at-12.04.27-PM-768x1041.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-03-at-12.04.27-PM.png 986w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Who Is Florence Price?,’ by students of the Special Music School at Kaufman Music Center, New York..\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The kids attend \u003ca href=\"https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/sms/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Special Music School\u003c/a>, a K-12 public school in Manhattan that teaches high-level music instruction alongside academics. Shannon Potts is an English teacher there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our children are musicians, so whether or not we intentionally draw it together, they bring music into the classroom every day in the most delightful ways,” Potts says. “So if you’re talking about themes and poetry, immediately a child will qualify it with the way that a theme repeats in music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Potts assigned her sixth, seventh and eighth grade students to study Florence Price—a composer born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1887. She was the first Black woman to have her music played by a major American orchestra: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony No. 1 in 1933 and her Piano Concerto in One Movement the next year. In 1939, at her \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/748757267/lift-every-voice-marian-anderson-florence-b-price-and-the-sound-of-black-sisterh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">famed Lincoln Memorial concert\u003c/a>, the contralto Marian Anderson included Price’s arrangement of the spiritual “My Soul is Anchored in the Lord.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite Price’s talent and drive, most classical music performers and gatekeepers put her aside, and her work failed to gain traction with the large, almost exclusively white institutions that could have catapulted her to mainstream renown. As she herself wrote in a letter to famed conductor Serge Koussevitzky, “I have two handicaps—those of sex and race.” She was not wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I think it’s one of the few moments in my job where I had to cancel the next meeting and I was just kind of filled with tears,” Thompson recalls. “It was just an incredibly beautiful moment.” Thompson agreed to publish the book; all royalties will go to Kaufman Music Center, which is a non-profit organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iYxGHhCuqg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebecca Beato\u003c/a> is a 14-year-old violinist from Queens. She was also one of the lead illustrators of \u003cem>Who Is Florence Price?\u003c/em> and she says that Price has been a personal inspiration. “Her music has been out there, performed by major orchestras,” Beato says, “and she’s a woman of color, which even now—it’s like difficult to get your music shown to the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writing the book was a process of discovery, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlUudUD2Vkk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cobie Buckmire\u003c/a>, a 13-year-old pianist from Brooklyn. “I didn’t even know who she was before I started this,” he notes. “All the other famous composers are white men like Mozart, Beethoven, Bach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hazel Peebles, a 13-year-old violist from Harlem, says that you can hear Price’s personal history in her music. “It really is beautiful,” Peebles observes. “She worked in some of her history, some of her Black background into the music. I really just love that and appreciate that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What the students learned in creating this book goes far beyond music, Kate Sheeran says. “They’re also seeing that they can have a voice in shaping who writes history and who tells stories,” she says, “and that we don’t have to just accept the way music is presented to us or the way music history is presented to us—that they too can shape that. And that, to me, is the most exciting thing.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/pSmTa8hvd5U'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/pSmTa8hvd5U'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>“We talk about representation in literature all the time,” Potts observes. “For kids to be able to become authors and activists in a way, to disrupt the story of the way that classical music is being told. They no longer, as a diverse population, become victims of a largely white society. They control the narrative. They can rewrite it. And this project, in the way it’s been received, really shows them that when they speak up, the world is ready to hear them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Potts says that the very last lines of her students’ book have already come true, thanks to their hard work and creativity. “Today, Florence’s music can be heard all around the world just like she dreamed of when she was young,” Potts reads. “If someone asks, ‘Who is Florence Price?’, you can tell them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=These+NYC+kids+have+written+the+history+of+an+overlooked+Black+female+composer&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "kala-bagai-mother-india-south-asian-immigrants-san-francisco-history",
"title": "The Woman Who Became ‘Mother India’ to Generations of South Asian Immigrants",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n September of 1915, Kala Bagai stepped off the steamship Korea onto Angel Island and entered a whole new world. Kala, who had journeyed to America from Peshawar, India (today part of Pakistan), was 21, already a mother of three, and did not speak a word of English. Her husband Vaishno was determined to seek a better life for his family, far away from the British colonial rule of their home country. Unbeknownst to the young couple at the time, their lives in America would go on to exemplify the struggles of many South Asian immigrants during the first half of the 20th century. But it was Kala alone who defined how best to survive them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kala was born in Amritsar, Punjab, and married Vaishno when she was 11 and he was 12. Child marriage had long been the norm in India—1892’s Age of Consent Bill only went so far as to raise the age a child could be married from 10 to 12. \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Marriage_Restraint_Act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">It would take until 1929\u003c/a> for India’s marital ages to be set at 14 for girls and 18 for boys. Despite the earliness of their pairing, the Bagais proved to be a good match—a fact demonstrated by Vaishno’s insistence on bringing his family to America with him. Most immigrants at the time left their wives and families back home. Bringing the whole family was a luxury afforded to Vaishno because of his status as a member of Peshawar’s educated upper classes. (He brought $25,000 in gold to America with him.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13904183']The Bagais’ decision to move to San Francisco was inspired by one of Vaishno’s childhood friends, Ram Chandra Bharadwaj. Bharadwaj had immigrated to the city and co-founded the Gadar Party—a political organization focused on removing British colonizers from India. The Gadar Party’s location in the Bay Area did not prevent its articles from reaching the Indian people. In July 1911, for example, party co-founder Har Dayal wrote in Calcutta’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.saada.org/item/20101216-153\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Modern Review\u003c/em>\u003c/a> about why America offered better living conditions than India under British rule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Under the Union Jack, [Indians] have no status, as they are servants in the house. An Englishman never forgets that a Hindu is his ‘fellow-subject,’” Dayal wrote. “Very few [Indians] possess an adequate notion of the good that is being done to the cause of their country by the few Hindus who live scattered on this vast continent in small groups … America is perhaps the only country in the world from which a solitary wandering Hindu can send a message of hope and encouragement to his countrymen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After receiving such communications, the Bagais’ hopes must have been high about their new home. And while Kala almost immediately found joy in San Francisco’s beaches, the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, and the wonders of the post-earthquake rebuild, she later described her first impressions of California as “strange.” And it’s no wonder. On the Bagais’ arrival, the family was initially split up and held in detention over a weekend while Angel Island’s immigration station was closed. Vaishno was held with their eldest son Brij, and handled all communication with the immigration officials. Kala was held with their two youngest sons, Madan and Ram. In a 1982 interview with her grandson, Kala noted that the first word she understood during her two-day detention was American slang for food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When the eating time came,” she said, “they said ‘Chow, chow, chow,’ so I understood that means to eat … I didn’t like the food at all. But I saw that they were selling some fruits, so I bought some fruits. But I did not know how much money to give. So I took the money and put it in my hand … and let him take whatever he wants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Bagai family were released the following Monday, the sight of Kala was enthralling not just to San Franciscans, but to the whole country. As one of the first Indian women to move to California, her appearance was deemed worthy of coverage in the \u003cem>San Francisco Call-Post\u003c/em> and even East Coast publications. On Oct. 3, 1915, \u003cem>The Washington Post\u003c/em> reported:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Mrs. Hander Kala Bagai, coming all the way from northwestern India, has introduced San Francisco to the latest thing in jewelry—the nose diamond. “Have your surgeon,” says Mrs. Bagai, “pierce your nose horizontally above the nostrils and just under the bridge; then order from your jeweler a little, straight gold bar with a diamond set in one end; run it through the perforation and you’re right up to the minute in fashions.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>On Christmas Eve that year, Oklahoma’s \u003cem>Leader-Tribune\u003c/em> newspaper also wrote about Kala’s nose stud, in a report that was smattered with a heavy dose of racism:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Nose gems as desirable ornaments have just been introduced into this country. It is the latest effort of man—or woman—to achieve good looks. The fad came from northwestern India. That is the country, you know, where people starve themselves to make it rain or change their luck. Mrs. Mander Kala Bagai brought it from that country to San Francisco, and they do say that some San Franciscans are wearing the nose diamond this very minute.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>This kind of prejudice would be a constant source of disruption and upset for the Bagais during their earliest years in California. After living in a single furnished room and then a rented apartment, Vaishno’s successful general store on Fillmore Street let the family to buy a home in Berkeley—a house they would never actually live in. On move-in day, arriving with all of their belongings in tow, the Bagais found themselves barred from their own home. Racist neighbors had locked them out. In 1982, Kala explained why they left and never returned. “I told Mr. Bagai, ‘I don’t want to live in this neighborhood. I don’t want to live in this house because they might hurt my children.’” Instead, the family settled back in San Francisco, in an apartment above their shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13906420\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13906420\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM-800x574.png\" alt=\"An Indian man wearing smart slacks, vest, white shirt and bow tie stands before the counter in a shop.\" width=\"800\" height=\"574\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM-800x574.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM-1020x731.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM-160x115.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM-768x551.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM.png 1194w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vaishno Bagai standing at the counter of his general store in 1923. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the South Asian American Digital Archive)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]K[/dropcap]ala always made sure to leave her door open to other immigrants moving to Northern California. Personally facing down hostilities like the confrontation in Berkeley only compounded her dedication to her community. In 2020, one of her grandchildren, Rani Bagai, wrote about Kala for \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleyside.org/2020/03/12/opinion-berkeley-might-name-a-street-after-kala-bagai-this-is-her-story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Berkeleyside\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. She noted that her grandmother started her “tradition of welcoming other new Indian immigrants and visitors with a home-cooked vegetarian meal and instant friendship,” because of her own pangs of “feeling lonely in a strange land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the Bagais were a little more comfortable and Vaishno had established an import-export business, the family donated money to the Gadar Party and were regulars at the organization’s headquarters, which also housed its official newspaper, the \u003cem>Hindustan Gadar\u003c/em>. In 1917, the headquarters moved to 5 Wood St. in San Francisco, where the Gadar Memorial building still stands today. Those offices were, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cgisf.gov.in/page/gadar-memorial-hall/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to the Consulate General of India\u003c/a>, “an environment for thinkers, activists and volunteers who came to live, work, organize and help run a printing press that sent their messages around the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13897608']In March 1921, Vaishno Bagai gave up his Indian citizenship to become an American citizen. At the time, wives of immigrants, like Kala, automatically became naturalized when their husbands did without filing an application of their own. Sadly, the Bagais’ American dream was short-lived. In February 1923, the Supreme Court reached a decision in the \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">United States vs. Bhagat Singh Thind case\u003c/a> that no person of Indian origin was eligible to become an American citizen. This not only affected new immigrants, but retroactively revoked citizenship for the Bagais and other families just like them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The court’s decision plunged the Bagais into financial difficulties. They lost their right to own property, they lost their general store, and they lost the ability to return to India. Within five years, Vaishno could see no way out. Kala saved him from a suicide attempt on Feb. 1, 1928. The \u003cem>Petaluma Argus-Courier\u003c/em> reported: “He had gone to Land’s End with the intention of jumping from one of the high cliffs to the jagged rocks below. He had been restrained, he said, by his wife.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just six weeks later, Vaishno’s lifeless body was found in a gas-filled San Jose apartment, alongside a letter detailing why he felt he had no choice but to take his own life. The \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> later published the suicide note that bid farewell to his “nice and lovely wife” and “extra good children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I came to America thinking, dreaming and hoping to make this land my home,” Vaishno wrote. “In the last 12 or 13 years we all made ourselves as much Americanized as possible. But they now come to me and say I am no longer an American citizen … Now what am I? What have I made of myself and my children? We cannot exercise our rights, we cannot leave this country … Is life worth living in a gilded cage? Obstacles this way, blockades that way, and the bridges burnt behind.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaishno’s death caused an uproar. On April 27, 1928, a friend named J.S. Hundal wrote a letter to the editor of Oregon’s \u003cem>Corvallis Gazette-Times\u003c/em>. Hundal described Vaishno’s suicide as an act of “protest.” He declared: “By what law of humanity and nature can you justify such a policy of accepting a man as citizen today, and make him an outlaw tomorrow … Think of the tragedy, the deception, of embittered life and blighted hopes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1982, looking back, Kala recalled being devastated by her husband’s death, as well as “lonesome” and “lost” without him. Now, she was without a country or her partner. But she wasn’t ready to give up. Using money from life insurance policies taken out by Vaishno, Kala invested wisely and figured out how to start again on her own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='news_11840927'][dropcap]D[/dropcap]etermined to succeed, Kala honed her English skills, attended night school, stayed in touch with the members of the Gadar Party, and sent each and every one of her boys off to college. (Madan graduated from both Stanford and M.I.T. The engineer was eulogized in a 1941 issue of \u003cem>Stanford Illustrated Review\u003c/em> after his tragic death, aged 33, of pneumonia while seeking work in India.) But what Kala did best of all was make new South Asian immigrants feel welcome in a new country. She acted as the guide to living in America that she’d never had, and she brought countless people together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her \u003cem>Berkeleyside\u003c/em> article, Rani Bagai wrote: “As a little girl, I recall meeting South Asians from every walk of life—filmmakers, politicians, classical dancers, yoga teachers, authors, priests and lecturers—as well as from every origin—Gujaratis, Bengalis, Punjabis, Tamils, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists and Parsis. All were her friends, and frequently, at her dining room table.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once she had raised her children, Kala married another member of the Gadar Party, Mahesh Chandra. In 1946, she and her surviving children were finally granted American citizenship after Harry Truman signed the \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luce%E2%80%93Celler_Act_of_1946\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luce-Celler Act\u003c/a> into law. A year later, India gained its independence from the U.K. and together with Mahesh, Kala moved to Los Angeles. It was there, as more and more Indian and Pakistani immigrants made their way to the U.S., that Kala’s tireless community-building earned her the nickname she’s remembered by today: “Mother India.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rani noted in \u003cem>Berkeleyside\u003c/em>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>She had many close American friends and never went on a social visit without a gift box of See’s candy. Working with both American and South Asian immigrant women like herself, she went on in the 1950s and 1960s to become an active community builder in Southern California, hosting Indian American cultural events, receptions, and benefits at community halls, theaters, and homes. She built bridges wherever she could between her adopted American culture and the great diversity of Indian culture.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>By the age of 90, Kala Bagai Chandra’s list of achievements was both impressive and joyful. She helped fight for the freedom of her homeland with the Gadar Party. She was an example of resilience to her children and a wider community of immigrants. And she helped forge a path, and act as an indefatigable example, for those who followed in her footsteps. Most impressive of all, she almost single-handedly built one of the first Indian American communities in the U.S., providing all those newcomers with safe spaces, cultural connections and a place to keep traditions alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After she died in 1983, an obituary printed in \u003cem>India West\u003c/em> described exactly what had made Kala so special.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Armed with her personal philosophy expressed in the saying ‘If you are good … the whole world will love you,’ Mrs. Chandra radiated warmth, kindness, and good will to everyone. Her home became a ‘little India’ to the community, and she became the symbol of Mother India.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>To learn about other Rebel Girls from Bay Area History, visit the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/rebelgirls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebel Girls homepage\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A book celebrating women from the Rebel Girls series, \u003ca href=\"https://citylights.com/politics-current-events-history/unsung-heroines35-women-who-changed/\">‘Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area,’\u003c/a> is available now from City Lights.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">I\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>n September of 1915, Kala Bagai stepped off the steamship Korea onto Angel Island and entered a whole new world. Kala, who had journeyed to America from Peshawar, India (today part of Pakistan), was 21, already a mother of three, and did not speak a word of English. Her husband Vaishno was determined to seek a better life for his family, far away from the British colonial rule of their home country. Unbeknownst to the young couple at the time, their lives in America would go on to exemplify the struggles of many South Asian immigrants during the first half of the 20th century. But it was Kala alone who defined how best to survive them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kala was born in Amritsar, Punjab, and married Vaishno when she was 11 and he was 12. Child marriage had long been the norm in India—1892’s Age of Consent Bill only went so far as to raise the age a child could be married from 10 to 12. \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Marriage_Restraint_Act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">It would take until 1929\u003c/a> for India’s marital ages to be set at 14 for girls and 18 for boys. Despite the earliness of their pairing, the Bagais proved to be a good match—a fact demonstrated by Vaishno’s insistence on bringing his family to America with him. Most immigrants at the time left their wives and families back home. Bringing the whole family was a luxury afforded to Vaishno because of his status as a member of Peshawar’s educated upper classes. (He brought $25,000 in gold to America with him.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Bagais’ decision to move to San Francisco was inspired by one of Vaishno’s childhood friends, Ram Chandra Bharadwaj. Bharadwaj had immigrated to the city and co-founded the Gadar Party—a political organization focused on removing British colonizers from India. The Gadar Party’s location in the Bay Area did not prevent its articles from reaching the Indian people. In July 1911, for example, party co-founder Har Dayal wrote in Calcutta’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.saada.org/item/20101216-153\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Modern Review\u003c/em>\u003c/a> about why America offered better living conditions than India under British rule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Under the Union Jack, [Indians] have no status, as they are servants in the house. An Englishman never forgets that a Hindu is his ‘fellow-subject,’” Dayal wrote. “Very few [Indians] possess an adequate notion of the good that is being done to the cause of their country by the few Hindus who live scattered on this vast continent in small groups … America is perhaps the only country in the world from which a solitary wandering Hindu can send a message of hope and encouragement to his countrymen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After receiving such communications, the Bagais’ hopes must have been high about their new home. And while Kala almost immediately found joy in San Francisco’s beaches, the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, and the wonders of the post-earthquake rebuild, she later described her first impressions of California as “strange.” And it’s no wonder. On the Bagais’ arrival, the family was initially split up and held in detention over a weekend while Angel Island’s immigration station was closed. Vaishno was held with their eldest son Brij, and handled all communication with the immigration officials. Kala was held with their two youngest sons, Madan and Ram. In a 1982 interview with her grandson, Kala noted that the first word she understood during her two-day detention was American slang for food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When the eating time came,” she said, “they said ‘Chow, chow, chow,’ so I understood that means to eat … I didn’t like the food at all. But I saw that they were selling some fruits, so I bought some fruits. But I did not know how much money to give. So I took the money and put it in my hand … and let him take whatever he wants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Bagai family were released the following Monday, the sight of Kala was enthralling not just to San Franciscans, but to the whole country. As one of the first Indian women to move to California, her appearance was deemed worthy of coverage in the \u003cem>San Francisco Call-Post\u003c/em> and even East Coast publications. On Oct. 3, 1915, \u003cem>The Washington Post\u003c/em> reported:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Mrs. Hander Kala Bagai, coming all the way from northwestern India, has introduced San Francisco to the latest thing in jewelry—the nose diamond. “Have your surgeon,” says Mrs. Bagai, “pierce your nose horizontally above the nostrils and just under the bridge; then order from your jeweler a little, straight gold bar with a diamond set in one end; run it through the perforation and you’re right up to the minute in fashions.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>On Christmas Eve that year, Oklahoma’s \u003cem>Leader-Tribune\u003c/em> newspaper also wrote about Kala’s nose stud, in a report that was smattered with a heavy dose of racism:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Nose gems as desirable ornaments have just been introduced into this country. It is the latest effort of man—or woman—to achieve good looks. The fad came from northwestern India. That is the country, you know, where people starve themselves to make it rain or change their luck. Mrs. Mander Kala Bagai brought it from that country to San Francisco, and they do say that some San Franciscans are wearing the nose diamond this very minute.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>This kind of prejudice would be a constant source of disruption and upset for the Bagais during their earliest years in California. After living in a single furnished room and then a rented apartment, Vaishno’s successful general store on Fillmore Street let the family to buy a home in Berkeley—a house they would never actually live in. On move-in day, arriving with all of their belongings in tow, the Bagais found themselves barred from their own home. Racist neighbors had locked them out. In 1982, Kala explained why they left and never returned. “I told Mr. Bagai, ‘I don’t want to live in this neighborhood. I don’t want to live in this house because they might hurt my children.’” Instead, the family settled back in San Francisco, in an apartment above their shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13906420\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13906420\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM-800x574.png\" alt=\"An Indian man wearing smart slacks, vest, white shirt and bow tie stands before the counter in a shop.\" width=\"800\" height=\"574\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM-800x574.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM-1020x731.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM-160x115.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM-768x551.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-22-at-10.53.06-PM.png 1194w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vaishno Bagai standing at the counter of his general store in 1923. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the South Asian American Digital Archive)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">K\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>ala always made sure to leave her door open to other immigrants moving to Northern California. Personally facing down hostilities like the confrontation in Berkeley only compounded her dedication to her community. In 2020, one of her grandchildren, Rani Bagai, wrote about Kala for \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleyside.org/2020/03/12/opinion-berkeley-might-name-a-street-after-kala-bagai-this-is-her-story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Berkeleyside\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. She noted that her grandmother started her “tradition of welcoming other new Indian immigrants and visitors with a home-cooked vegetarian meal and instant friendship,” because of her own pangs of “feeling lonely in a strange land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the Bagais were a little more comfortable and Vaishno had established an import-export business, the family donated money to the Gadar Party and were regulars at the organization’s headquarters, which also housed its official newspaper, the \u003cem>Hindustan Gadar\u003c/em>. In 1917, the headquarters moved to 5 Wood St. in San Francisco, where the Gadar Memorial building still stands today. Those offices were, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cgisf.gov.in/page/gadar-memorial-hall/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to the Consulate General of India\u003c/a>, “an environment for thinkers, activists and volunteers who came to live, work, organize and help run a printing press that sent their messages around the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In March 1921, Vaishno Bagai gave up his Indian citizenship to become an American citizen. At the time, wives of immigrants, like Kala, automatically became naturalized when their husbands did without filing an application of their own. Sadly, the Bagais’ American dream was short-lived. In February 1923, the Supreme Court reached a decision in the \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">United States vs. Bhagat Singh Thind case\u003c/a> that no person of Indian origin was eligible to become an American citizen. This not only affected new immigrants, but retroactively revoked citizenship for the Bagais and other families just like them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The court’s decision plunged the Bagais into financial difficulties. They lost their right to own property, they lost their general store, and they lost the ability to return to India. Within five years, Vaishno could see no way out. Kala saved him from a suicide attempt on Feb. 1, 1928. The \u003cem>Petaluma Argus-Courier\u003c/em> reported: “He had gone to Land’s End with the intention of jumping from one of the high cliffs to the jagged rocks below. He had been restrained, he said, by his wife.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just six weeks later, Vaishno’s lifeless body was found in a gas-filled San Jose apartment, alongside a letter detailing why he felt he had no choice but to take his own life. The \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> later published the suicide note that bid farewell to his “nice and lovely wife” and “extra good children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I came to America thinking, dreaming and hoping to make this land my home,” Vaishno wrote. “In the last 12 or 13 years we all made ourselves as much Americanized as possible. But they now come to me and say I am no longer an American citizen … Now what am I? What have I made of myself and my children? We cannot exercise our rights, we cannot leave this country … Is life worth living in a gilded cage? Obstacles this way, blockades that way, and the bridges burnt behind.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaishno’s death caused an uproar. On April 27, 1928, a friend named J.S. Hundal wrote a letter to the editor of Oregon’s \u003cem>Corvallis Gazette-Times\u003c/em>. Hundal described Vaishno’s suicide as an act of “protest.” He declared: “By what law of humanity and nature can you justify such a policy of accepting a man as citizen today, and make him an outlaw tomorrow … Think of the tragedy, the deception, of embittered life and blighted hopes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1982, looking back, Kala recalled being devastated by her husband’s death, as well as “lonesome” and “lost” without him. Now, she was without a country or her partner. But she wasn’t ready to give up. Using money from life insurance policies taken out by Vaishno, Kala invested wisely and figured out how to start again on her own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">D\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>etermined to succeed, Kala honed her English skills, attended night school, stayed in touch with the members of the Gadar Party, and sent each and every one of her boys off to college. (Madan graduated from both Stanford and M.I.T. The engineer was eulogized in a 1941 issue of \u003cem>Stanford Illustrated Review\u003c/em> after his tragic death, aged 33, of pneumonia while seeking work in India.) But what Kala did best of all was make new South Asian immigrants feel welcome in a new country. She acted as the guide to living in America that she’d never had, and she brought countless people together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her \u003cem>Berkeleyside\u003c/em> article, Rani Bagai wrote: “As a little girl, I recall meeting South Asians from every walk of life—filmmakers, politicians, classical dancers, yoga teachers, authors, priests and lecturers—as well as from every origin—Gujaratis, Bengalis, Punjabis, Tamils, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists and Parsis. All were her friends, and frequently, at her dining room table.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once she had raised her children, Kala married another member of the Gadar Party, Mahesh Chandra. In 1946, she and her surviving children were finally granted American citizenship after Harry Truman signed the \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luce%E2%80%93Celler_Act_of_1946\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luce-Celler Act\u003c/a> into law. A year later, India gained its independence from the U.K. and together with Mahesh, Kala moved to Los Angeles. It was there, as more and more Indian and Pakistani immigrants made their way to the U.S., that Kala’s tireless community-building earned her the nickname she’s remembered by today: “Mother India.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rani noted in \u003cem>Berkeleyside\u003c/em>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>She had many close American friends and never went on a social visit without a gift box of See’s candy. Working with both American and South Asian immigrant women like herself, she went on in the 1950s and 1960s to become an active community builder in Southern California, hosting Indian American cultural events, receptions, and benefits at community halls, theaters, and homes. She built bridges wherever she could between her adopted American culture and the great diversity of Indian culture.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>By the age of 90, Kala Bagai Chandra’s list of achievements was both impressive and joyful. She helped fight for the freedom of her homeland with the Gadar Party. She was an example of resilience to her children and a wider community of immigrants. And she helped forge a path, and act as an indefatigable example, for those who followed in her footsteps. Most impressive of all, she almost single-handedly built one of the first Indian American communities in the U.S., providing all those newcomers with safe spaces, cultural connections and a place to keep traditions alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After she died in 1983, an obituary printed in \u003cem>India West\u003c/em> described exactly what had made Kala so special.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Armed with her personal philosophy expressed in the saying ‘If you are good … the whole world will love you,’ Mrs. Chandra radiated warmth, kindness, and good will to everyone. Her home became a ‘little India’ to the community, and she became the symbol of Mother India.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>To learn about other Rebel Girls from Bay Area History, visit the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/rebelgirls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebel Girls homepage\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When Hipolita Orendain de Medina first arrived in San Francisco as a young child, it was the result of a bold move by her mother, Francisca Tejada de Orendain. Francisca made the decision to leave Mexico and head to San Francisco in the 1850s, after the death of her husband. The widow and her two children, Hipolita and Virginia, would be among the first wave of Mexican families to emigrate to California following the Mexican-American War, a conflict that ended when Mexico City fell to U.S. troops on Sept. 14, 1847—the same year Hipolita was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13892514']Though tensions remained between the two countries at the time of the Orendains’ move, Francisca had inherited a fortune from her late husband Jesús Orendain’s silver mine, and sought new opportunities in the United States. Though she was moving to still-unruly Gold Rush country, Francisca was determined to raise her young daughters as respected and virtuous women of society. She succeeded. After investing in Oakland waterfront properties and some land on what is now Broadway, Francisca went about making sure Virginia and Hipolita received excellent educations. By adulthood, Hipolita was fluent in at least three languages—English, Spanish and German—and had developed a passion for all things literary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was her unbridled enthusiasm for the written word that led Hipolita to start keeping meticulous records of her poems, journals and musings. She also filed and stored her “recuerdos de amistad” (tokens of friendship)—the essays, letters, well wishes, portraits and business cards she received from friends and family. Without archival intentions, throughout the course of her life, Hipolita’s personal effects were quietly preserving a vibrant snapshot of Mexican American society in Northern California during the second half of the 1800s and into the early 1900s. One album alone spanned the years between 1865 and 1908.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13904798\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13904798\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-800x495.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-800x495.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-1020x631.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-160x99.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-768x475.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-1536x951.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-2048x1267.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-1920x1188.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L) The cover of Hipolita’s album of remembrance, full of notes, art, tokens of good luck, songs, poems and letters written by friends and family. It also contains pressed flowers. (R) A “God’s Eye” – or Ojo de Dios – gifted to Hipolita by a friend. The spiritual tokens are woven out of yarn upon a wooden cross and are believed to provide their owners with protection. \u003ccite>(Rae Alexandra/ Courtesy of the California Historical Society)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some of the letters Hipolita collected offer a glimpse into the hardships and political turmoil felt by the loved ones she left behind in Mexico. One, from M. Travesi, details the chaos and bloodshed of the \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_French_intervention_in_Mexico\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Second French Intervention in Mexico\u003c/a>, a war fought between 1861 and 1867. The note, dated July 14, 1865 begins: “Standing before the arrogance of an infamous and brutal soldiery made up of the vile slaves of the traitor France might offer them liberty? Cowardly executioners! In order to defeat, they raise scaffolding where they assassinate forced martyrs and pure patriots whose noble blood is worn on their faces.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 12, 1867, Hipolita’s cousin Felicio Orendain wrote from Mexico: “Today, we experience much fear while we wait for the result of the battle that at any moment will occur in Querétaro. All the resources of the Republicans against those of Maximiliano [the Archduke of Austria, installed in Mexico by the French government] are meant to create a federal army along with the help of the towns’ resources. In this context, it is very difficult for us (to live here) and, if this commotion persists, our general ruin will be a certain fact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Hipolita and her mother were actively contributing to the war effort from San Francisco. Hipolita was a member of San Francisco’s junta patriótica (patriotic assembly). She was also active in recruiting men in California to go and fight for their home country. (Words she jotted down in her private notebook show her to be quite persuasive in this regard. “If we have the courage to sacrifice everything to duty,” she wrote, “this sacrifice makes room for the most pleasant satisfaction one can taste.”) Francisca used her wealth to outfit the new soldiers and finance their travel to the Mexican frontlines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13893514']When \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Ju%C3%A1rez\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">President Benito Juárez\u003c/a> finally regained control of the country, the joy and relief was palpable in letters sent to Hipolita. But much of the correspondence she received is best described as declarations of adoration. Many men seem to have been quite besotted with her. On Sept. 27, 1865, José Montesinol wrote, “What is it about your look, what is it about your smile, that attracts so many hearts? What magic and enchanting qualities does your breath have that awakens soldiers, wounded by deception and their abandonment of love for glory?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just three weeks prior to Montesinol’s letter, another suitor named Lozano wrote to her: “Polita, you are the ideal woman, because you are just as virtuous as you are beautiful.” Hipolita no doubt would have seen this as a high compliment, given that in her personal musings she once wrote, “Perfect happiness derives only from virtue.” On another occasion, she noted, “Every time one does not fulfill one’s moral duty, one does not fulfill [one’s] other [duties] either.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13904796\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13904796\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-800x495.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-800x495.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-1020x631.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-160x99.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-768x475.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-1536x951.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-2048x1267.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-1920x1188.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L) “May every blessing this wreath contains be yours.” Addressed to Hipolita and signed by a Mrs. E. Smith on April 15, 1883. (R) A song written for Hipolita by her husband, Emilio Medina. \u003ccite>(Rae Alexandra/ Courtesy of the California Historical Society)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In October 1868, Hipolita married Emigdio “Emilio” Medina at Old St. Mary’s Church, on the corner of California and Grant in San Francisco. \u003ca href=\"https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Joseph_Alemany\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Archbishop Joseph Alemany\u003c/a> performed the Roman Catholic ceremony, while Virginia acted as a witness. Once married, the couple settled into a family home at 707½ McAllister St. As with her other suitors, Medina was spellbound by Hipolita. In her album of remembrance, she saved the love notes and songs he wrote for her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='pop_102633']Despite promising beginnings, theirs was not a relationship that would last. Medina was a diplomat who traveled across Europe and South America on behalf of President Juárez to shore up Mexico’s relations overseas. And together, Hipolita and Medina brought four daughters into the world: Josefina in 1869, Virginia in 1871, Czarina in 1873, and Mercedes (nicknamed Mercy) in 1876. By the 1880 census, however, Medina was no longer listed as a resident in Hipolita’s home despite the fact that he was still an active member of San Francisco society. (In 1881, he co-founded and became editor for \u003cem>La Republica\u003c/em>, a weekly Spanish-language newspaper in San Francisco.) Hipolita started referring to herself as a widow long before Medina moved to Los Angeles to edit \u003cem>El Estandarte Mexicano\u003c/em>, a publication that was, according to one of his business cards, “Devoted to the interests of the resident Mexican population.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1893, Hipolita and Medina came together once more to grieve the loss of their daughter Czarina, who died just three months after her 20th birthday. Hipolita lovingly taped details of her daughter’s memorial from both English and Spanish language newspapers under a passage written by Czarina for her mother. That poem ended with the line, “Wherever I am, I remember you yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13904827\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13904827\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-800x495.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-800x495.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-1020x631.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-160x99.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-768x475.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-1536x951.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-2048x1267.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-1920x1188.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L) A poem written by Czarina surrounded by pressed ferns and her obituaries. (R) A poem written by Hipolita’s daughter Virginia, dated Jan. 10, 1883. \u003ccite>(Rae Alexandra/ Courtesy of the California Historical Society)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As a single mother, Hipolita worked—alongside her sister—as a dressmaker. And she cultivated very close relationships with each and every one of her daughters. In 1894, one friend named Aurora wrote to Hipolita, “You have known with your love and your talent how to form the souls of your daughters with pieces of your heart so that they are the treasure and grace of their home. They have been nurtured by your example in their virtues; virtues that make a woman more esteemed and strong when faced with the trials of life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of Hipolita’s strength may have been inspired by learning from her own mother’s mistakes. Francisca lost most of her Oakland property investments to squatters, administrators, and the Southern Pacific Railroad. As Francisca prepared to fight the latter in court, threats were made on Hipolita and Virginia’s lives; Francisca retreated and dropped the suit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hipolita died in 1922. But her voice, and the voices of her loved ones, live on through her beautifully preserved books and correspondence. Her collection continues to present a vivid snapshot of 19th century life in both the Bay Area and Mexico. That Hipolita understood the value of these kinds of personal papers speaks to an impressive fortitude and degree of self-belief, qualities that continue to inspire new generations—including her own descendents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2016, Hipolita’s great-granddaughter, award-winning author Laurel Anne Hill, dedicated her second novel, 2016’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/32802993-the-engine-woman-s-light\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Engine Woman’s Light\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, to her great-grandmother. Hill was also responsible, in 2009, for organizing and funding the translation of Hipolita’s letters and journals into English. Those papers now live alongside Hipolita’s original documents at the California Historical Society. Hipolita’s youngest daughter Mercedes (Hill’s grandmother) may have put it best in a sweet verse she wrote to her mother on Aug. 12, 1883:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>You are good as you are fair,\u003cbr>\nNone, none on Earth above you,\u003cbr>\nAs pure in thought as angels are,\u003cbr>\nTo know you is to love you.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>To learn about other Rebel Girls from Bay Area History, visit the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/rebelgirls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebel Girls homepage\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A book celebrating women from the Rebel Girls series, \u003ca href=\"https://citylights.com/politics-current-events-history/unsung-heroines35-women-who-changed/\">‘Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area,’\u003c/a> is available now from City Lights.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When Hipolita Orendain de Medina first arrived in San Francisco as a young child, it was the result of a bold move by her mother, Francisca Tejada de Orendain. Francisca made the decision to leave Mexico and head to San Francisco in the 1850s, after the death of her husband. The widow and her two children, Hipolita and Virginia, would be among the first wave of Mexican families to emigrate to California following the Mexican-American War, a conflict that ended when Mexico City fell to U.S. troops on Sept. 14, 1847—the same year Hipolita was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Though tensions remained between the two countries at the time of the Orendains’ move, Francisca had inherited a fortune from her late husband Jesús Orendain’s silver mine, and sought new opportunities in the United States. Though she was moving to still-unruly Gold Rush country, Francisca was determined to raise her young daughters as respected and virtuous women of society. She succeeded. After investing in Oakland waterfront properties and some land on what is now Broadway, Francisca went about making sure Virginia and Hipolita received excellent educations. By adulthood, Hipolita was fluent in at least three languages—English, Spanish and German—and had developed a passion for all things literary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was her unbridled enthusiasm for the written word that led Hipolita to start keeping meticulous records of her poems, journals and musings. She also filed and stored her “recuerdos de amistad” (tokens of friendship)—the essays, letters, well wishes, portraits and business cards she received from friends and family. Without archival intentions, throughout the course of her life, Hipolita’s personal effects were quietly preserving a vibrant snapshot of Mexican American society in Northern California during the second half of the 1800s and into the early 1900s. One album alone spanned the years between 1865 and 1908.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13904798\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13904798\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-800x495.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-800x495.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-1020x631.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-160x99.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-768x475.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-1536x951.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-2048x1267.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-album-Gods-Eye-1920x1188.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L) The cover of Hipolita’s album of remembrance, full of notes, art, tokens of good luck, songs, poems and letters written by friends and family. It also contains pressed flowers. (R) A “God’s Eye” – or Ojo de Dios – gifted to Hipolita by a friend. The spiritual tokens are woven out of yarn upon a wooden cross and are believed to provide their owners with protection. \u003ccite>(Rae Alexandra/ Courtesy of the California Historical Society)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some of the letters Hipolita collected offer a glimpse into the hardships and political turmoil felt by the loved ones she left behind in Mexico. One, from M. Travesi, details the chaos and bloodshed of the \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_French_intervention_in_Mexico\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Second French Intervention in Mexico\u003c/a>, a war fought between 1861 and 1867. The note, dated July 14, 1865 begins: “Standing before the arrogance of an infamous and brutal soldiery made up of the vile slaves of the traitor France might offer them liberty? Cowardly executioners! In order to defeat, they raise scaffolding where they assassinate forced martyrs and pure patriots whose noble blood is worn on their faces.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 12, 1867, Hipolita’s cousin Felicio Orendain wrote from Mexico: “Today, we experience much fear while we wait for the result of the battle that at any moment will occur in Querétaro. All the resources of the Republicans against those of Maximiliano [the Archduke of Austria, installed in Mexico by the French government] are meant to create a federal army along with the help of the towns’ resources. In this context, it is very difficult for us (to live here) and, if this commotion persists, our general ruin will be a certain fact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Hipolita and her mother were actively contributing to the war effort from San Francisco. Hipolita was a member of San Francisco’s junta patriótica (patriotic assembly). She was also active in recruiting men in California to go and fight for their home country. (Words she jotted down in her private notebook show her to be quite persuasive in this regard. “If we have the courage to sacrifice everything to duty,” she wrote, “this sacrifice makes room for the most pleasant satisfaction one can taste.”) Francisca used her wealth to outfit the new soldiers and finance their travel to the Mexican frontlines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>When \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Ju%C3%A1rez\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">President Benito Juárez\u003c/a> finally regained control of the country, the joy and relief was palpable in letters sent to Hipolita. But much of the correspondence she received is best described as declarations of adoration. Many men seem to have been quite besotted with her. On Sept. 27, 1865, José Montesinol wrote, “What is it about your look, what is it about your smile, that attracts so many hearts? What magic and enchanting qualities does your breath have that awakens soldiers, wounded by deception and their abandonment of love for glory?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just three weeks prior to Montesinol’s letter, another suitor named Lozano wrote to her: “Polita, you are the ideal woman, because you are just as virtuous as you are beautiful.” Hipolita no doubt would have seen this as a high compliment, given that in her personal musings she once wrote, “Perfect happiness derives only from virtue.” On another occasion, she noted, “Every time one does not fulfill one’s moral duty, one does not fulfill [one’s] other [duties] either.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13904796\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13904796\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-800x495.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-800x495.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-1020x631.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-160x99.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-768x475.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-1536x951.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-2048x1267.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Hipolita-luck-and-music-1920x1188.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L) “May every blessing this wreath contains be yours.” Addressed to Hipolita and signed by a Mrs. E. Smith on April 15, 1883. (R) A song written for Hipolita by her husband, Emilio Medina. \u003ccite>(Rae Alexandra/ Courtesy of the California Historical Society)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In October 1868, Hipolita married Emigdio “Emilio” Medina at Old St. Mary’s Church, on the corner of California and Grant in San Francisco. \u003ca href=\"https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Joseph_Alemany\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Archbishop Joseph Alemany\u003c/a> performed the Roman Catholic ceremony, while Virginia acted as a witness. Once married, the couple settled into a family home at 707½ McAllister St. As with her other suitors, Medina was spellbound by Hipolita. In her album of remembrance, she saved the love notes and songs he wrote for her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Despite promising beginnings, theirs was not a relationship that would last. Medina was a diplomat who traveled across Europe and South America on behalf of President Juárez to shore up Mexico’s relations overseas. And together, Hipolita and Medina brought four daughters into the world: Josefina in 1869, Virginia in 1871, Czarina in 1873, and Mercedes (nicknamed Mercy) in 1876. By the 1880 census, however, Medina was no longer listed as a resident in Hipolita’s home despite the fact that he was still an active member of San Francisco society. (In 1881, he co-founded and became editor for \u003cem>La Republica\u003c/em>, a weekly Spanish-language newspaper in San Francisco.) Hipolita started referring to herself as a widow long before Medina moved to Los Angeles to edit \u003cem>El Estandarte Mexicano\u003c/em>, a publication that was, according to one of his business cards, “Devoted to the interests of the resident Mexican population.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1893, Hipolita and Medina came together once more to grieve the loss of their daughter Czarina, who died just three months after her 20th birthday. Hipolita lovingly taped details of her daughter’s memorial from both English and Spanish language newspapers under a passage written by Czarina for her mother. That poem ended with the line, “Wherever I am, I remember you yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13904827\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13904827\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-800x495.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-800x495.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-1020x631.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-160x99.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-768x475.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-1536x951.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-2048x1267.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/Czarina-1920x1188.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(L) A poem written by Czarina surrounded by pressed ferns and her obituaries. (R) A poem written by Hipolita’s daughter Virginia, dated Jan. 10, 1883. \u003ccite>(Rae Alexandra/ Courtesy of the California Historical Society)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As a single mother, Hipolita worked—alongside her sister—as a dressmaker. And she cultivated very close relationships with each and every one of her daughters. In 1894, one friend named Aurora wrote to Hipolita, “You have known with your love and your talent how to form the souls of your daughters with pieces of your heart so that they are the treasure and grace of their home. They have been nurtured by your example in their virtues; virtues that make a woman more esteemed and strong when faced with the trials of life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of Hipolita’s strength may have been inspired by learning from her own mother’s mistakes. Francisca lost most of her Oakland property investments to squatters, administrators, and the Southern Pacific Railroad. As Francisca prepared to fight the latter in court, threats were made on Hipolita and Virginia’s lives; Francisca retreated and dropped the suit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hipolita died in 1922. But her voice, and the voices of her loved ones, live on through her beautifully preserved books and correspondence. Her collection continues to present a vivid snapshot of 19th century life in both the Bay Area and Mexico. That Hipolita understood the value of these kinds of personal papers speaks to an impressive fortitude and degree of self-belief, qualities that continue to inspire new generations—including her own descendents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2016, Hipolita’s great-granddaughter, award-winning author Laurel Anne Hill, dedicated her second novel, 2016’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/32802993-the-engine-woman-s-light\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Engine Woman’s Light\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, to her great-grandmother. Hill was also responsible, in 2009, for organizing and funding the translation of Hipolita’s letters and journals into English. Those papers now live alongside Hipolita’s original documents at the California Historical Society. Hipolita’s youngest daughter Mercedes (Hill’s grandmother) may have put it best in a sweet verse she wrote to her mother on Aug. 12, 1883:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>You are good as you are fair,\u003cbr>\nNone, none on Earth above you,\u003cbr>\nAs pure in thought as angels are,\u003cbr>\nTo know you is to love you.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>To learn about other Rebel Girls from Bay Area History, visit the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/rebelgirls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rebel Girls homepage\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A book celebrating women from the Rebel Girls series, \u003ca href=\"https://citylights.com/politics-current-events-history/unsung-heroines35-women-who-changed/\">‘Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area,’\u003c/a> is available now from City Lights.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "a-new-generation-of-filipino-hip-hop-builds-on-a-deep-bay-area-legacy",
"title": "A New Generation of Filipino Hip-Hop Builds On a Deep Bay Area Legacy",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guapdad 4000 isn’t your prototypical rapper. For starters, the West Oakland artist is part of the Marvel Universe’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> soundtrack, something he’s proud about as a comic head.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I’m a huge Marvel fan and it was the first Asian American movie. I knew they was finna go crazy,” he says. “I was juiced. Especially to champion my Filipino side as a part of that. And it takes place in the Bay? Not even Thanos could snap me out of that.” [aside postid='arts_13902470']\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you don’t know Guap, he’s an essential player in the Bay Area’s latest wave of Filipino American artists who’ve taken over the scene with their eclectically unparalleled vibrancy. You can’t talk about Bay Area music in 2021 without mentioning him or the “\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SeZHOqSsZA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">same squad, same squad\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">” of Fil Ams from here, including H.E.R, Ruby Ibarra, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13924828/rocky-rivera-ruckus-magazine-hyphy-movement-hip-hop\">Rocky Rivera\u003c/a>, P-Lo, Kuya Beats and Saweetie, to name a a few. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saweetie has \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/9446648/saweetie-tap-in-top-10-rb-hip-hop-songs-chart\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">two chart-topping singles\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and a McDonald’s meal with her name on it. P-Lo \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13899945/how-the-bay-area-reshaped-a-classic-soundtrack\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">produced “About That Time,”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the most-streamed song from this summer’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Space Jam: A New Legacy\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> soundtrack, featuring verses from NBA All Star Damian Lillard, G-Eazy and White Dave. H.E.R won four Grammys and launched the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13903394/photos-h-e-r-erykah-badu-and-other-rb-stars-shine-at-lights-on-festival\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lights On Festival\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, with nearly 6 million followers on Instagram. Rivera added “author” to her resume with the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13894648/rapper-and-activist-rocky-rivera-embraces-growth-in-her-first-book-snakeskin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">publication of her debut book\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Ibarra is literally \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13887169/whats-on-your-ballot-ruby-ibarra-rapper-and-scientist\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a scientist\u003c/a> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcbayarea.com/community/asian-pacific-america/scientist-and-rapper-ruby-ibarra-on-asian-pacific-america/2580781/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">co-founded the Pinays Rising Scholarship Program\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And that’s just in the past few months.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This list doesn’t even include the unquantifiable amount of genuine community work, activism and representation each artist has provided throughout Northern California and beyond over their careers and lifetimes. It also doesn’t even touch on the OG Pinoys and Pinays who certainly paved the path for this ascendance to happen.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13903463\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13903463\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/D7A5910.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/D7A5910.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/D7A5910-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/D7A5910-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">H.E.R. performs at Lights On Festival at Concord Pavilion on Sunday, Sept. 19, 2021. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A-Side: Chicken Adobo\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“My mother’s side is Filipino. My grandma is a short, 5’3” lady from Zambales in the Philippines. My grandfather is Black and was a merchant marine out there on a military base. They met and decided to move to Oakland and that’s how my roots started in the Bay,” Guap says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a relatable truth for many Bay Area locals, who’ve grown up here with mixed backgrounds and a fluid sense of self across the generations. Alongside his Fil Am peers, Guap is voicing his multi-ethnic experience in an idiosyncratic, hyphy-melodic way, narrating where he’s from and his journey navigating the world as a Black Pinoy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/1DaovaJgytE\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With his popular single “Chicken Adobo” (a love song inspired by his lola’s cooking) and his feature on Thundercat’s “\u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/T2bcUZj6LAc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dragonball Durag\u003c/a>” (a tribute to the classic anime), Guap is constantly dropping hints about his Asian American upbringing and identity—though, most people admittedly don’t perceive him as Filipino upon initially seeing him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“My direct portion is one-fourth Filipino,” he says. “I don’t use that mindstate though. I’m equal Black and Filipino. My lola raised me in a biracial household, cooking and speaking both languages. I went to an all-Filipino church for 15 years. I was immersed in the culture. Hella [stuff] in my upbringing comes straight from my Filipino side.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guap’s style and albums are reflective of his modern Filipino upbringing in the Bay Area—which is to say, it’s not singularly limited. It’s multidimensional and authentic, an unapologetic fusion. And it’s helping to put Filipino Americans back on the map. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But he’s not alone. He just happens to be one \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQuajCfNBA8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Alpha\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in this group of trendsetters. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13867199\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13867199\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/09/Saweetie-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Saweetie performs at Rolling Loud 2018 in Oakland.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/09/Saweetie.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/09/Saweetie-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/09/Saweetie-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Saweetie performs at Rolling Loud 2018 in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“If you look at every pillar in hip-hop that exists, all of ’em, it’s gonna be at least one Filipino in there that’s a legend,” Guapdad says. “Chad Hugo [from The Neptunes]. H.E.R. Qbert. Jabbawockeez. Over the years Filipinos have found ways to integrate themselves seamlessly. It’s global but it’s also bringing that back to a local scale.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In other words, they got roots.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>B-Side: Origins and Migrations\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With over 310,000 Filipino residents, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.asianjournal.com/usa/dateline-usa/pew-research-over-4-2m-filipino-americans-in-the-us/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the San Francisco Bay Area boasts the second-largest population of the diaspora in the United States\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Per capita, it’s among the most densely populated Filipino areas outside of the Philippines. It’s no surprise then that \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21172993/filipino-neighborhood-san-francisco-destroyed-i-hotel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">there was once a Manilatown in San Francisco\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which blossomed from the 1920s through the 1970s until it was systematically dismantled and cannibalized as part of the “Manhattanization” of downtown’s Financial District. Starting in the 1950s, low-income Filipinos were evicted to make room for “a Wall Street of the West.” The story is just one chapter of the ongoing battle to maintain affordable housing in one of the world’s most expensive cities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/tcsdglJFT0M\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, Filipinos have thrived along the Bay Area’s shorelines, allowing for many artists, activists and changemakers to emerge and collaboratively grow here—especially through the rebellion of hip-hop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We were raised by brown immigrants in America, but immigrants who were educated in American colonial systems,” says \u003ca href=\"https://barbarajanereyes.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Barbara Jane Reyes\u003c/a>, a Manila-born poet and professor at the University of San Francisco. “Our parents’ aesthetic preferences were rooted in colonial whiteness. So seeing brown kids having a good time while listening to what we were told was the music of Black people seemed scary to them.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By adopting hip-hop as a form of self expression, many Filipinos during the 1980s were able to create a sense of selfhood that might’ve otherwise felt trampled on or neglected by previous generations and institutional ideologies. [aside postid='arts_13812554']\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But how exactly did so many Filipinos like Reyes, who grew up in the East Bay, and her family end up migrating to the San Francisco Bay Area—where they’ve been able to directly participate in hip-hop’s growth—to begin with? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The story spans centuries, but Reyes tells me there was a turning point in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/us-immigration-since-1965\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Immigration and Nationality Act\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. In an effort to attract skilled labor, the law abolished discriminatory quotas that once prevented Asians and Pacific Islanders from entering the country after World War II. The decision might’ve been the most influential factor in allowing Filipino families to spread across California, forever changing the demographics of coastal North America.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We had migrant laborers who came to the territory of Hawai’i in 1905. Then laborers who came to the continental West Coast in the ’20s and ’30s,” says Professor Reyes. “Then World War II happened and there’s another wave of migration with [Filipino] Americans who enlist in the military, go to the Philippines to fight, and come back with war brides to the States and raise their families here. It wasn’t until ’65 til that all opened up more. And we’ve been here ever since.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Importantly, the 1965 Act was largely a result of monumental liberation efforts made during the Civil Rights, Chicano and United Farmworkers Movements. That unity among multi-ethnic, working-class communities foreshadowed an allyship that would eventually coalesce organically into hip-hop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It wasn’t about popular entertainment but had something to do with making cultural and political statements,” says Reyes. “Listening to hip-hop, I realized something else was happening that made me have to look at my parents’ colonial education and love for whiteness. Going to rap was part of that exploration of asking, ‘Why do you love whiteness so much and why is Blackness so scary to you?’ How do we find kinship in those communities?” [aside postid=\"arts_13895462']\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the late 1980s, Filipinos had fully integrated themselves into Bay Area shipyards and city centers as military personnel and blue-collar workers. They also moved into suburbs and middle-class areas with access to college and professional careers in health, education and other fields. Their proliferation led to more intersectional involvement in Americanized cultures, such as\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.undiscoveredsf.com/blog/2019/7/13/a-look-back-at-filipino-american-rampb-music-of-the-1990s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> freestyle and R&B of the ’90s\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With a visible community already established, and clearly growing, conditions led to the formation of tightly-connected enclaves in places like Fremont, Vallejo and, most famously, Daly City.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>C-Side: Spinning Records, Breaking Barriers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Filipinos have always been present in Bay Area hip-hop. Ever since the artform emerged as a vehicle for social justice and cultural empowerment, they’ve been among the most active participants in DJing, breakdancing, graffiti and MCing—from Daly City to Vallejo and back down to San Jose. Like many diverse immigrant diasporas who serendipitously arrive in the Golden State, Fil Ams have been a true staple in our neighborhoods, and their role in hip-hop is a reflection of that shared, liberating transcendence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“My aunt, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hopclear.com/filipino-amerian-mom-goes-viral-for-being-an-awesome-dj/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DJ Lady Ames\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, was one of the first Pinay DJs to come out of San Francisco. She went to Balboa High \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbnDXp4lYuk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">during the ’80s while the mobile DJing scene was happening\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and she started a crew with her friends,” says Delrokz.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13905237\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 512px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13905237\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/delrokz.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"341\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/delrokz.jpg 512w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/delrokz-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Delrokz in his Hayward record shop, The Stacks. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Del is a DJ and b-boy who has lived all over the “Yay Area,” but is currently posted up in downtown Hayward, where he owns his new record shop, \u003ca href=\"https://www.thestacksrecordshop.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Stacks\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“To be Filipina and have a whole crew of DJs, that was revolutionary at its time in the early ’80s,” he says. “They were an all Pinay group, The GoGos. There really weren’t that many women DJs getting attention back then. But I grew up around her and my uncles and that whole culture. It’s part of who I am.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Del is the founder and organizer of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/breakthebay/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Break the Bay\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, an annual five-on-five breakdance competition that spins on principles of community, fun and “healthy competition.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s yet another manifestation of how the Filipino homies have not only been a part of the culture, but have pioneered spaces for others to be a part of the culture, too—regardless of gender or age.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Del emphasizes that he is a second-generation Fil Am, whose mom immigrated from the islands at a very early age, and whose dad was born here. It’s an important detail to distinguish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“My parents listened to hip-hop,” he explains. “I had a different experience than someone who’s parents immigrated here directly. Hip-hop culture is so deep within the Filipino Bay Area because it’s been passed for so long. We also just have a lot of parties, so having good DJs makes a lot of sense for us.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://vimeo.com/239151243\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To say Bay Area Filipinos have become good DJs is an understatement. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Widely credited as the most innovative turntablists in modern hip-hop history, the Invisibl Skratch Piklz symbolize everything that Bay Area Filipinos have meant to the world of DJing. Their members—DJ QBert, Mixmaster Mike, DJ Apollo, Shortkut and D-Styles, to name some—have been dominant in global competitions such as the International Turntablist Federation battles since the ’80s. At one point, they received so many awards that other crews didn’t even show up to compete. By the late 90s, their members were frequently asked to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.mtv.com/news/tmaa3x/infamous-scratches-out-victory-in-us-dj-competition\">judges for the nation’s best DJ competitions\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.factmag.com/2016/09/08/invisibl-skratch-piklz-the-13th-floor/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Underground hip-hip historian Laurent Fintoni\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—the author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bedroom Beats & B-Sides: Instrumental Hip-Hop and Electronic Music at the Turn of the Century\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—lauded the Piklz as the original group who “invented the concept of a DJ band, elevated the turntablist art form to new technical and creative heights and helped drive technological innovation.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Connecting five turntables to scratch, mix and fade all at once, live on stage? Yup. These Filipino DJs are known for popularizing that. Their craft went on to birth future groups in the genre of turntablism, such as The X-Ecutioners from New York City.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between the Piklz, DJ Lady Ames, Delrokz and so many other Filipino Americans from this time and place, DJing went from inside the garages of Daly City’s battling crews to a globally revolutionized way of life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10345320\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10345320\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/QBertMain-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/QBertMain.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/QBertMain-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">DJ QBert. \u003ccite>(Thud Rumble)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>D-Side: Underground Legends\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you’ve ever noticed “TDK” tagged on any Bay Area surface, then you’ve likely seen the work of Vogue and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13863999/dream-day-2019-celebrating-mike-dream-franciscos-50th-birthday\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the late Mike Dream Francisco\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. They are—in the opinion of every Bay Area graffiti artist I know—two of the most iconic dudes to ever wield cans of aerosol. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that they’re Filipinos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here are a few more Pinoy names you may or may not have heard about who have helped to shape, or are currently shaping, Bay Area culture: \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/reyresurreccion/?hl=en\">Rey Resurrection\u003c/a>, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/10445851/from-gangs-to-glory-bambus-political-hip-hop-for-the-people\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bambu\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Celskiii, Deeandroid, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dj_bitesize/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DJ Bitesize\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://dothebay.com/artists/knuckle-neck-tribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Knuckle Neck Tribe\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And who can forget one of the most influential sound architects of the entire hyphy movement?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dustin “Nump” Perfetto is a 707 product who has been inside studios with everyone’s favorite musicians, from E-40 to Green Day. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13924042/nump-hyphy-i-gott-grapes-interview\">He operated as the recording engineer\u003c/a> on countless albums from that glorious era in Bay Area music history, including \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rick Rock Presents Federation: The Album\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which features the timeless anthem, “\u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/oe7ohnlZhBc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hyphy\u003c/a>.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Filipinos play a major part behind the scenes but it hasn’t always been as popular for us to be mainstream,” Perfetto says. “I won’t stop ’til we get that respect.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13887463\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13887463\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/RubyIbarra.MAIN_.jpg\" alt=\"Ruby Ibarra in an East Bay park.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/RubyIbarra.MAIN_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/RubyIbarra.MAIN_-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/RubyIbarra.MAIN_-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ruby Ibarra. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By promoting his pride in launching his own clothing line, Gorillapino, and collaborating with former and current Fil Am artists (including Ruby Ibarra on her incisive 2017 album, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://pinoyhiphopsuperstar.com/ruby-ibarra-circa-91-album-review/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CIRCA91\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which includes extensive verses in Tagalog) Perfetto personifies the undying grit and collective strength of the Fil Am hip hop community that has always been \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccm73eJo2_U\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Going Off”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for the Bay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003ca href=\"https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/articles/the-story-of-lapu-lapu-the-legendary-filipino-hero/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lapulapu\u003c/a> is the original Filipino warrior who cut off Magellan’s head when they tried to conquer us,” Perfetto says. “That’s the energy I move with. That’s who we are.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Translation: Filipinos stand united for anything they believe in. And local history underscores how they’ve always utilized the powers of music and community for good.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/xOrYbSM1ArI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perfetto and the rest of these artists making waves out here can definitely wreck microphones, but they can just as easily build across communities to reach audiences of any background. More than anything, they represent how the Bay is a soil of innovation and solidarity—how we’re all building towards communal celebration.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We have a lot of similarities with other cultures,” Guapdad reminds me. “It’s just something we need to celebrate more.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Guapdad, Saweetie and some of today's best-known Bay Area artists rep their Filipino heritage, continuing a tradition going back to the '80s.",
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"title": "A New Generation of Filipino Hip-Hop Builds On a Deep Bay Area Legacy | KQED",
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"headline": "A New Generation of Filipino Hip-Hop Builds On a Deep Bay Area Legacy",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guapdad 4000 isn’t your prototypical rapper. For starters, the West Oakland artist is part of the Marvel Universe’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> soundtrack, something he’s proud about as a comic head.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I’m a huge Marvel fan and it was the first Asian American movie. I knew they was finna go crazy,” he says. “I was juiced. Especially to champion my Filipino side as a part of that. And it takes place in the Bay? Not even Thanos could snap me out of that.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you don’t know Guap, he’s an essential player in the Bay Area’s latest wave of Filipino American artists who’ve taken over the scene with their eclectically unparalleled vibrancy. You can’t talk about Bay Area music in 2021 without mentioning him or the “\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SeZHOqSsZA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">same squad, same squad\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">” of Fil Ams from here, including H.E.R, Ruby Ibarra, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13924828/rocky-rivera-ruckus-magazine-hyphy-movement-hip-hop\">Rocky Rivera\u003c/a>, P-Lo, Kuya Beats and Saweetie, to name a a few. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saweetie has \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/9446648/saweetie-tap-in-top-10-rb-hip-hop-songs-chart\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">two chart-topping singles\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and a McDonald’s meal with her name on it. P-Lo \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13899945/how-the-bay-area-reshaped-a-classic-soundtrack\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">produced “About That Time,”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the most-streamed song from this summer’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Space Jam: A New Legacy\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> soundtrack, featuring verses from NBA All Star Damian Lillard, G-Eazy and White Dave. H.E.R won four Grammys and launched the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13903394/photos-h-e-r-erykah-badu-and-other-rb-stars-shine-at-lights-on-festival\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lights On Festival\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, with nearly 6 million followers on Instagram. Rivera added “author” to her resume with the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13894648/rapper-and-activist-rocky-rivera-embraces-growth-in-her-first-book-snakeskin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">publication of her debut book\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Ibarra is literally \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13887169/whats-on-your-ballot-ruby-ibarra-rapper-and-scientist\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a scientist\u003c/a> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcbayarea.com/community/asian-pacific-america/scientist-and-rapper-ruby-ibarra-on-asian-pacific-america/2580781/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">co-founded the Pinays Rising Scholarship Program\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And that’s just in the past few months.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This list doesn’t even include the unquantifiable amount of genuine community work, activism and representation each artist has provided throughout Northern California and beyond over their careers and lifetimes. It also doesn’t even touch on the OG Pinoys and Pinays who certainly paved the path for this ascendance to happen.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13903463\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13903463\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/D7A5910.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/D7A5910.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/D7A5910-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/D7A5910-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">H.E.R. performs at Lights On Festival at Concord Pavilion on Sunday, Sept. 19, 2021. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A-Side: Chicken Adobo\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“My mother’s side is Filipino. My grandma is a short, 5’3” lady from Zambales in the Philippines. My grandfather is Black and was a merchant marine out there on a military base. They met and decided to move to Oakland and that’s how my roots started in the Bay,” Guap says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a relatable truth for many Bay Area locals, who’ve grown up here with mixed backgrounds and a fluid sense of self across the generations. Alongside his Fil Am peers, Guap is voicing his multi-ethnic experience in an idiosyncratic, hyphy-melodic way, narrating where he’s from and his journey navigating the world as a Black Pinoy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/1DaovaJgytE'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/1DaovaJgytE'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With his popular single “Chicken Adobo” (a love song inspired by his lola’s cooking) and his feature on Thundercat’s “\u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/T2bcUZj6LAc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dragonball Durag\u003c/a>” (a tribute to the classic anime), Guap is constantly dropping hints about his Asian American upbringing and identity—though, most people admittedly don’t perceive him as Filipino upon initially seeing him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“My direct portion is one-fourth Filipino,” he says. “I don’t use that mindstate though. I’m equal Black and Filipino. My lola raised me in a biracial household, cooking and speaking both languages. I went to an all-Filipino church for 15 years. I was immersed in the culture. Hella [stuff] in my upbringing comes straight from my Filipino side.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guap’s style and albums are reflective of his modern Filipino upbringing in the Bay Area—which is to say, it’s not singularly limited. It’s multidimensional and authentic, an unapologetic fusion. And it’s helping to put Filipino Americans back on the map. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But he’s not alone. He just happens to be one \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQuajCfNBA8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Alpha\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in this group of trendsetters. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13867199\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13867199\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/09/Saweetie-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Saweetie performs at Rolling Loud 2018 in Oakland.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/09/Saweetie.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/09/Saweetie-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/09/Saweetie-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Saweetie performs at Rolling Loud 2018 in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“If you look at every pillar in hip-hop that exists, all of ’em, it’s gonna be at least one Filipino in there that’s a legend,” Guapdad says. “Chad Hugo [from The Neptunes]. H.E.R. Qbert. Jabbawockeez. Over the years Filipinos have found ways to integrate themselves seamlessly. It’s global but it’s also bringing that back to a local scale.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In other words, they got roots.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>B-Side: Origins and Migrations\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With over 310,000 Filipino residents, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.asianjournal.com/usa/dateline-usa/pew-research-over-4-2m-filipino-americans-in-the-us/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the San Francisco Bay Area boasts the second-largest population of the diaspora in the United States\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Per capita, it’s among the most densely populated Filipino areas outside of the Philippines. It’s no surprise then that \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21172993/filipino-neighborhood-san-francisco-destroyed-i-hotel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">there was once a Manilatown in San Francisco\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which blossomed from the 1920s through the 1970s until it was systematically dismantled and cannibalized as part of the “Manhattanization” of downtown’s Financial District. Starting in the 1950s, low-income Filipinos were evicted to make room for “a Wall Street of the West.” The story is just one chapter of the ongoing battle to maintain affordable housing in one of the world’s most expensive cities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/tcsdglJFT0M'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/tcsdglJFT0M'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, Filipinos have thrived along the Bay Area’s shorelines, allowing for many artists, activists and changemakers to emerge and collaboratively grow here—especially through the rebellion of hip-hop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We were raised by brown immigrants in America, but immigrants who were educated in American colonial systems,” says \u003ca href=\"https://barbarajanereyes.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Barbara Jane Reyes\u003c/a>, a Manila-born poet and professor at the University of San Francisco. “Our parents’ aesthetic preferences were rooted in colonial whiteness. So seeing brown kids having a good time while listening to what we were told was the music of Black people seemed scary to them.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By adopting hip-hop as a form of self expression, many Filipinos during the 1980s were able to create a sense of selfhood that might’ve otherwise felt trampled on or neglected by previous generations and institutional ideologies. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But how exactly did so many Filipinos like Reyes, who grew up in the East Bay, and her family end up migrating to the San Francisco Bay Area—where they’ve been able to directly participate in hip-hop’s growth—to begin with? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The story spans centuries, but Reyes tells me there was a turning point in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/us-immigration-since-1965\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Immigration and Nationality Act\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. In an effort to attract skilled labor, the law abolished discriminatory quotas that once prevented Asians and Pacific Islanders from entering the country after World War II. The decision might’ve been the most influential factor in allowing Filipino families to spread across California, forever changing the demographics of coastal North America.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We had migrant laborers who came to the territory of Hawai’i in 1905. Then laborers who came to the continental West Coast in the ’20s and ’30s,” says Professor Reyes. “Then World War II happened and there’s another wave of migration with [Filipino] Americans who enlist in the military, go to the Philippines to fight, and come back with war brides to the States and raise their families here. It wasn’t until ’65 til that all opened up more. And we’ve been here ever since.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Importantly, the 1965 Act was largely a result of monumental liberation efforts made during the Civil Rights, Chicano and United Farmworkers Movements. That unity among multi-ethnic, working-class communities foreshadowed an allyship that would eventually coalesce organically into hip-hop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It wasn’t about popular entertainment but had something to do with making cultural and political statements,” says Reyes. “Listening to hip-hop, I realized something else was happening that made me have to look at my parents’ colonial education and love for whiteness. Going to rap was part of that exploration of asking, ‘Why do you love whiteness so much and why is Blackness so scary to you?’ How do we find kinship in those communities?” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the late 1980s, Filipinos had fully integrated themselves into Bay Area shipyards and city centers as military personnel and blue-collar workers. They also moved into suburbs and middle-class areas with access to college and professional careers in health, education and other fields. Their proliferation led to more intersectional involvement in Americanized cultures, such as\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.undiscoveredsf.com/blog/2019/7/13/a-look-back-at-filipino-american-rampb-music-of-the-1990s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> freestyle and R&B of the ’90s\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With a visible community already established, and clearly growing, conditions led to the formation of tightly-connected enclaves in places like Fremont, Vallejo and, most famously, Daly City.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>C-Side: Spinning Records, Breaking Barriers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Filipinos have always been present in Bay Area hip-hop. Ever since the artform emerged as a vehicle for social justice and cultural empowerment, they’ve been among the most active participants in DJing, breakdancing, graffiti and MCing—from Daly City to Vallejo and back down to San Jose. Like many diverse immigrant diasporas who serendipitously arrive in the Golden State, Fil Ams have been a true staple in our neighborhoods, and their role in hip-hop is a reflection of that shared, liberating transcendence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“My aunt, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.hopclear.com/filipino-amerian-mom-goes-viral-for-being-an-awesome-dj/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DJ Lady Ames\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, was one of the first Pinay DJs to come out of San Francisco. She went to Balboa High \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbnDXp4lYuk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">during the ’80s while the mobile DJing scene was happening\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and she started a crew with her friends,” says Delrokz.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13905237\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 512px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13905237\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/delrokz.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"341\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/delrokz.jpg 512w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/delrokz-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Delrokz in his Hayward record shop, The Stacks. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Del is a DJ and b-boy who has lived all over the “Yay Area,” but is currently posted up in downtown Hayward, where he owns his new record shop, \u003ca href=\"https://www.thestacksrecordshop.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Stacks\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“To be Filipina and have a whole crew of DJs, that was revolutionary at its time in the early ’80s,” he says. “They were an all Pinay group, The GoGos. There really weren’t that many women DJs getting attention back then. But I grew up around her and my uncles and that whole culture. It’s part of who I am.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Del is the founder and organizer of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/breakthebay/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Break the Bay\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, an annual five-on-five breakdance competition that spins on principles of community, fun and “healthy competition.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s yet another manifestation of how the Filipino homies have not only been a part of the culture, but have pioneered spaces for others to be a part of the culture, too—regardless of gender or age.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Del emphasizes that he is a second-generation Fil Am, whose mom immigrated from the islands at a very early age, and whose dad was born here. It’s an important detail to distinguish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“My parents listened to hip-hop,” he explains. “I had a different experience than someone who’s parents immigrated here directly. Hip-hop culture is so deep within the Filipino Bay Area because it’s been passed for so long. We also just have a lot of parties, so having good DJs makes a lot of sense for us.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To say Bay Area Filipinos have become good DJs is an understatement. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Widely credited as the most innovative turntablists in modern hip-hop history, the Invisibl Skratch Piklz symbolize everything that Bay Area Filipinos have meant to the world of DJing. Their members—DJ QBert, Mixmaster Mike, DJ Apollo, Shortkut and D-Styles, to name some—have been dominant in global competitions such as the International Turntablist Federation battles since the ’80s. At one point, they received so many awards that other crews didn’t even show up to compete. By the late 90s, their members were frequently asked to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.mtv.com/news/tmaa3x/infamous-scratches-out-victory-in-us-dj-competition\">judges for the nation’s best DJ competitions\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.factmag.com/2016/09/08/invisibl-skratch-piklz-the-13th-floor/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Underground hip-hip historian Laurent Fintoni\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—the author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bedroom Beats & B-Sides: Instrumental Hip-Hop and Electronic Music at the Turn of the Century\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—lauded the Piklz as the original group who “invented the concept of a DJ band, elevated the turntablist art form to new technical and creative heights and helped drive technological innovation.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Connecting five turntables to scratch, mix and fade all at once, live on stage? Yup. These Filipino DJs are known for popularizing that. Their craft went on to birth future groups in the genre of turntablism, such as The X-Ecutioners from New York City.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between the Piklz, DJ Lady Ames, Delrokz and so many other Filipino Americans from this time and place, DJing went from inside the garages of Daly City’s battling crews to a globally revolutionized way of life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10345320\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10345320\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/QBertMain-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/QBertMain.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/QBertMain-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">DJ QBert. \u003ccite>(Thud Rumble)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>D-Side: Underground Legends\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you’ve ever noticed “TDK” tagged on any Bay Area surface, then you’ve likely seen the work of Vogue and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13863999/dream-day-2019-celebrating-mike-dream-franciscos-50th-birthday\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the late Mike Dream Francisco\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. They are—in the opinion of every Bay Area graffiti artist I know—two of the most iconic dudes to ever wield cans of aerosol. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that they’re Filipinos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here are a few more Pinoy names you may or may not have heard about who have helped to shape, or are currently shaping, Bay Area culture: \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/reyresurreccion/?hl=en\">Rey Resurrection\u003c/a>, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/10445851/from-gangs-to-glory-bambus-political-hip-hop-for-the-people\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bambu\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Celskiii, Deeandroid, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dj_bitesize/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DJ Bitesize\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://dothebay.com/artists/knuckle-neck-tribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Knuckle Neck Tribe\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And who can forget one of the most influential sound architects of the entire hyphy movement?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dustin “Nump” Perfetto is a 707 product who has been inside studios with everyone’s favorite musicians, from E-40 to Green Day. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13924042/nump-hyphy-i-gott-grapes-interview\">He operated as the recording engineer\u003c/a> on countless albums from that glorious era in Bay Area music history, including \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rick Rock Presents Federation: The Album\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which features the timeless anthem, “\u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/oe7ohnlZhBc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hyphy\u003c/a>.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Filipinos play a major part behind the scenes but it hasn’t always been as popular for us to be mainstream,” Perfetto says. “I won’t stop ’til we get that respect.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13887463\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13887463\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/RubyIbarra.MAIN_.jpg\" alt=\"Ruby Ibarra in an East Bay park.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/RubyIbarra.MAIN_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/RubyIbarra.MAIN_-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/RubyIbarra.MAIN_-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ruby Ibarra. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By promoting his pride in launching his own clothing line, Gorillapino, and collaborating with former and current Fil Am artists (including Ruby Ibarra on her incisive 2017 album, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://pinoyhiphopsuperstar.com/ruby-ibarra-circa-91-album-review/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CIRCA91\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which includes extensive verses in Tagalog) Perfetto personifies the undying grit and collective strength of the Fil Am hip hop community that has always been \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccm73eJo2_U\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Going Off”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for the Bay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003ca href=\"https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/articles/the-story-of-lapu-lapu-the-legendary-filipino-hero/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lapulapu\u003c/a> is the original Filipino warrior who cut off Magellan’s head when they tried to conquer us,” Perfetto says. “That’s the energy I move with. That’s who we are.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Translation: Filipinos stand united for anything they believe in. And local history underscores how they’ve always utilized the powers of music and community for good.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/xOrYbSM1ArI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/xOrYbSM1ArI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perfetto and the rest of these artists making waves out here can definitely wreck microphones, but they can just as easily build across communities to reach audiences of any background. More than anything, they represent how the Bay is a soil of innovation and solidarity—how we’re all building towards communal celebration.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We have a lot of similarities with other cultures,” Guapdad reminds me. “It’s just something we need to celebrate more.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"perspectives": {
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"planet-money": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
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},
"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
"airtime": "SUN 12am-1am, SAT 2pm-3pm",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
"airtime": "SAT 4pm-5pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/reveal300px.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/reveal",
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"rss": "http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast"
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 16
},
"link": "/podcasts/rightnowish",
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