SENIOR STORIES
LET US NEVER AGAIN FEAR OUR NEIGHBORS​
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Minoru Sano was in his sophomore year at U.C. Berkeley when his education was interrupted by the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internment of Japanese-American families living on the West Coast. Read more....
SOCIAL CLUBS SUPPORT SOCIAL JUSTICE
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Mary Trahan was part of a caring and powerful network of South Berkeley community groups that had formed where friends and neighbors gathered together for fun events and organized for social justice. Read more...
NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVISTS IN SOUTH BERKELEY
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Frank and Louise Brown moved from Chicago to Berkeley in 1950, and became leading forces in community activism and education - Louise Brown was the first African-American teacher hired at Malcolm X Elementary school, back when it was called Lincoln Elementary. Read more...
NEIGHBORING THROUGH STORYTELLING
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Mary Beth Washington took on the name Orunamamu in the 1970s when she was teaching Black History in the Berkeley School System. She chose Orunamamu because it is a royal name that means Morning Star in Nigerian. Read more...
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN SOUTH BERKELEY
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Ratha Watkins, while working as a cosmetologist at Lovely Lady Beauty Salon, dreamed of owning her own business. They found a vacant shop at 3312 Adeline in a building so rundown it had been condemned. Read more...
THE RUMFORD FAIR HOUSING ACT
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Byron Rumford pursued fairness. In addition to running Rumford's Pharmacy on Sacramento Street, he was the first black man to represent Northern California in the California legislature. As an assemblyman, Byron Rumford advocated for a fair housing bill. Read more...
SENIOR STORIES
LET US NEVER AGAIN FEAR OUR NEIGHBORS​
​
Minoru Sano was in his sophomore year at U.C. Berkeley when his education was interrupted by the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internment of Japanese-American families living on the West Coast. Read more....
NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVISTS IN SOUTH BERKELEY
​​​
Frank and Louise Brown moved from Chicago to Berkeley in 1950, and became leading forces in community activism and education - Louise Brown was the first African-American teacher hired at Malcolm X Elementary school, back when it was called Lincoln Elementary. Read more...
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN SOUTH BERKELEY
​
Ratha Watkins, while working as a cosmetologist at Lovely Lady Beauty Salon, dreamed of owning her own business. They found a vacant shop at 3312 Adeline in a building so rundown it had been condemned. Read more...
WWII EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
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Gerald Carter's grandparents found him at an orphanage in Oakland in 1930. He went on to serve in the US Air Force, graduated from UC Berkeley, and had a 30 year career as a Naval Architectural Technician, working on surface craft and aircraft carriers. Read more...
SOCIAL CLUBS SUPPORT SOCIAL JUSTICE
​
Mary Trahan was part of a caring and powerful network of South Berkeley community groups that had formed where friends and neighbors gathered together for fun events and organized for social justice. Read more...
NEIGHBORING THROUGH STORYTELLING
​
Mary Beth Washington took on the name Orunamamu in the 1970s when she was teaching Black History in the Berkeley School System. She chose Orunamamu because it is a royal name that means Morning Star in Nigerian. Read more...
THE RUMFORD FAIR HOUSING ACT
​
Byron Rumford pursued fairness. In addition to running Rumford's Pharmacy on Sacramento Street, he was the first black man to represent Northern California in the California legislature. As an assemblyman, Byron Rumford advocated for a fair housing bill. Read more...
THE EDDIE AND LEE ESTHER YOUNG FAMILY
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Eddie and Lee Esther (Henderson) Young migrated to California from Lousiana, eagerly. Louisiana had racism, few jobs, poor education, Jim Crow laws, lynching, and many other social ills to leave behind. Lee Esther's sister, a South Berkeley resident, asked them to come to California where her husband had a job waiting at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Read more...
MIGRATION STORIES
SANTIAGO FAMILY MIGRATION STORY​
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Roberto Santiago's great grandfather came to the US from Japan in 1899. He worked in the sugar cane fields in Hawaii, and then came to California. In 1940s war broke out between the US and Japan, and the US government ordered all families of Japanese descent to leave their homes for internment camps. Read more....
FOREMAN FAMILY MIGRATION STORY​
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Jocelyn Foreman's mother and grandparents migrated to the Bay Area from Madera. Her grandfather was a porter for the Southern Pacific railroad. His parents had been sharecroppers, so he grew up seeing his parents trapped in servitude. Read more....
BREWER FAMILY MIGRATION STORY​
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Twanisha Brewer's grandparents are from Galveston, Texas. Her grandfather was a military veteran who became one of the first black firemen in Texas. Her grandmother was a nurse. They got married and moved to Washington State for work opportunities. Read more....
HOWARD FAMILY MIGRATION STORY​
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Mildred Howard's parents Mable and Rolly Howard moved to San Francisco from Galveston, Texas in 1941. Raleigh was a longshoreman, but during World War II the docks in Galveston were closed, so they moved to the Bay Area to work at the shipyards in Hunter's Point and Richmond. Read more....
PHAN FAMILY MIGRATION STORY​
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Aimee Phan's parents were both born and raised in South Vietnam, growing up during the Vietnam War. They left Vietnam to study in the Philippines in the 1960s, where they met and fell in love. Her mother won a scholarship to study social work in Kentucky, and her father went to Missouri. Read more....
ALDABASHI FAMILY MIGRATION STORY​
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Faiza Kassim Aldabashi's grandparents move to the US from Yemen. Her grandfather bought a four-unit apartment building in Oakland. His four sons and their families all lived there together. Faiza grew up happily living with all of her cousins in the same building. Read more....
WOLF FAMILY MIGRATION STORY​
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Jennifer Price Wolf's family has been in California since the days of the Gold Rush. Jennifer's great-great-great-grandfather Oscar took a boat from New York to San Francisco looking for adventure and opportunity. Her other great-great-great-grandparents came to California in covered wagons. Read more....
HOWARD FAMILY MIGRATION STORY​
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Mildred Howard's parents Mable and Rolly Howard moved to San Francisco from Galveston, Texas in 1941. Raleigh was a longshoreman, but during World War II the docks in Galveston were closed, so they moved to the Bay Area to work at the shipyards in Hunter's Point and Richmond. Read more....
MITCHELL FAMILY MIGRATION STORY​
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Shamar Mitchell's grandmother had moved to Detroit as part of the Great Migration of African Americans moving from the South in search of opportunity. Joiya Mitchtell's grandmother was a civil rights activist in Georgia who had marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma in 1963. Read more....
APARICIO/PIMENTEL FAMILY MIGRATION STORY​
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Aura Aparicio's parents grew up in Guatemala, but Aura grew up in the Bay Area. Alejandro Pimentel was born in Guatemala. In the 1980s, Guatemala and other countries in Central America were gripped by civil war. Nearly 1 million Central Americans fled to the United States during that time. Read more....