By Sarah Medina
When I graduated from UC Berkeley in the spring of 2012, I was eager to start what I had imagined would be my new “adult” life in the city. In my mind, my roommate and I would be moving into some small but chic Victorian in the Mission, an easy bike ride to my internship at a newspaper in the Financial District, with close access to the vast array of distractions the city has to offer. My life would — of course — consist mostly of late night pupusas and frequent visits to Mission Thrift.
After approximately one week perusing Craigslist, I learned one of the most important facts about San Francisco: It’s expensive. I couldn’t (and still can’t) afford to live in the city, and I was suddenly faced with the terrifying proposition of moving back in with my parents in LA, something my pride just wouldn’t allow. I spent my days grumbling about how I should have traded in my English and history degrees for ones in engineering and computer science, until my roommate finally convinced me that we should move to Oakland — and not the fancy part.
When we found our two-bedroom apartment — located in an area technically called East Lake, but which is really just the blurry space between the east side of Lake Merritt and Fruitvale — I thought I had struck gold. My room in the apartment is at least twice the size of any room I could have ever rented in Berkeley, and for significantly cheaper rent. Finally, here was a place where I could have space, a car, only one roommate, and still subsist on my measly income.
Unfortunately, life in Oakland wasn’t exactly the Promised Land I had first envisioned. I suppose I should have heeded the initial warning signs. Like when my mother visited me for the first time and was afraid to exit her vehicle (she had expressed a similar concern when she first dropped me off at Berkeley, but I ignored her motherly instincts). Or when our locks had to be replaced within the first month because someone kept breaking into the building. It took some time and a few lessons to learn how to live in my new neighborhood.
Finally, here was a place where I could have space, a car, only one roommate, and still subsist on my measly income.
The first change I had to get used to was how out of control my neighborhood felt. Unlike Berkeley, where I could comfortably predict what was going on in any given section of the city, the past ten months residing in Oakland have not been so predictable. I have witnessed drug deals, heard multiple shouting matches (and even the occasional gunshot) through the thin, thin walls, and called the cops when someone in the hallway was getting beaten up. I learned not to walk anywhere by myself after dark. East Oakland has a reputation for being a violent city, and I was realizing that it was partly valid. Initially, this frightened me to death. I was used to zipping around the city on my bike, bus, or BART, and all of a sudden if I wanted to go anywhere after dark, my car was the only safe means of transport. Even then, I feared for the safety of my vehicle — having your windows smashed is an unfortunate and common occurrence in my neighborhood.
I counted down the months until my lease would be over, rarely spending time in my neighborhood and regretting how far away I was from the city, until mid-October when I got sick of how miserable I was. Hating the place you have to sleep in every night can’t be healthy for anyone, so my roommate and I decided that it was about time we quit complaining, put on our big girl pants, and explore the place we had moved to. After all, we were stuck in a year’s lease so we might as well try to make our neighborhood “home.” We made a pact (cemented together over a bottle of wine and pinned to the fridge to admire daily) that every week we’d report back on something new we had done in the neighborhood or something cool we had found.
I am extremely competitive by nature, so this challenge was just what I needed to get off my futon and out the front door. That weekend, after some initial googling, I decided on my first adventure: Native American yoga at the local Intertribal community center.
There isn’t much about Native American yoga that differs from regular yoga, except for the drum practice happening in the corner. Somewhere between downward dog and lotus position, I knew I had found my way into the community. The members of the house were welcoming and eager to bombard me with tips, advice, and restaurant recommendations for life in East Oakland.
I guess it’s true what they say: You have to join clubs to make friends. The next week I joined an old-school boxing gym and met a lot of great people and released a lot of aggression duking it out in the ring.
By frequenting the Intertribal center and my new gym I learned to embrace and appreciate Oakland’s diversity — the kind of diversity that San Francisco lacks — where people of all different professions, skin colors, and economic backgrounds live together in semi-harmony. Working across the Bay in a predominantly Caucasian industry in a mostly Caucasian city, I was often the resident expert on all things considered “brown,” but I simultaneously felt the need to constantly prove how in touch I was with my half-Mexican, half–Native American identity. In Oakland, and especially at my new yoga and boxing classes, however, faces a lot browner than mine and with much more street cred were the norm. I felt freed from the obligation to act a certain way or explain certain customs, because people in Oakland didn’t care at all what my ethnic background was.
We made a pact (cemented together over a bottle of wine and pinned to the fridge to admire daily) that every week we’d report back on something new we had done in the neighborhood or something cool we had found.
Not too long after I joined the gym and the yoga classes, I found myself getting on BART heading back home straight after work, instead of loitering in SF as much as I could. I started to appreciate East Oakland for the unique things it has. That giant area east of Lake Merritt, for example, has a lot to offer in the way of food, culture, and nightlife. Jack London Square and Grand Lake (both super hip hubs for all kinds of things) are really close and I’ve fattened myself up trying out all the delicious eats that line those streets. A short distance from my house is Champa Garden — a gem that brings travelers from far and wide to my neck of the woods to taste the Laotian cuisine. Plus, just a short ride down the hill is a farmers’ market right outside one of the oldest theaters in the Bay Area (which gives away free popcorn on the weekdays).
And, of course, there’s Lake Merritt itself: a cultural playground where you can rent a paddle boat for cheap and make fun of the endless joggers who sweat their way around the three-mile loop, myself included.
I learned to embrace and appreciate Oakland’s diversity, where people of all different professions, skin colors, and economic backgrounds live together in semi-harmony.
Spending more time here, I also learned to stop being afraid. I started to feel more confident with my ability to protect myself in my own neighborhood. I don’t think I will ever get used to the random spurts of violence, but I realized that living in Oakland isn’t scary — it’s just a different lifestyle than I was used to.
Living in Oakland is a bit of a mix-up. There’s no distinct line between the “good” and “bad” neighborhoods. I’ve learned the names and professions of the slightly shady people who hang outside my apartment building all day. I’ve also learned to love that the majority of my neighbors are families with kids — even if I’m woken up early on Saturdays with the sound of tiny feet running down the hallways. Those same kids also belt out Adele at the top of their seven-year-old lungs, but I can’t even consider complaining about the noise because it’s so damn cute.
I realized that living in Oakland isn’t scary — it’s just a different lifestyle than I was used to.
Sometimes being on this side of the Bay isn’t ideal, and it has its share of lonely moments. Commuting every day to my jobs in San Francisco gets to be a pain, and most of my friends don’t live in Oakland. And though there are lots of great things around my city, there are a limited amount a gal can do by herself within walking distance of my residential neighborhood. Thankfully, I learned that life doesn’t (and shouldn’t) revolve around my apartment building.
While I do plan to move to a different area of town when my lease ends in June, I know I’ll still spend time in my old hood, if only for the community, the activities, and the incredible restaurants that helped me find my place here, and eventually love my neighborhood in Oakland.
