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Race, Poverty & the Environment | Vol. 18 No. 1 — 2011
By Vivian Huang
Building Transit Oriented Community in Oakland’s Chinatown
HOakland Chinatown’s history is one of survival in
the midst of continual acts of displacement. The firstChinese immigrants who formed various Chinatownsin Oakland during the 1850s had been driven fromthe fields of the Gold Rush by racist, hostile miners.Later, intense racism would cause some of these Chi-natowns to move—as with the settlement at SanPablo Avenue and 19th Street—or be eliminatedaltogether—as when the Chinatown at TelegraphAvenue and 17th Street burned down. Eventually, theChinese community was consolidated in the areaaround 8th and Webster Streets.
Roy Chan of the Oakland Asian Cultural Centerhas been documenting this history, particularly
because as time continues to march forward, muchknowledge has been lost to the current residents.“The reason why we wanted to tell a complete storyof the blocks that used to be there is because morerecent immigrants do not have any idea of what hap-pened,” says Chan.
“The Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project isa way to personalize and humanize the story—toshow that these were real homes that were built overthe decades and taken away,” he explains. “We wantto equip the community to know its own history andto speak on its own behalf.”
A key turning point for the neighborhood came inthe mid 1960s. In 1965, the Bay Area Rapid Transit(BART) agency, working with the city, redevelopedthree blocks in Chinatown—demolishing existingbuildings and relocating Madison Square Park tocreate the Lake Merritt BART station and BARTheadquarters. Destroyed in the process were 75homes, an orphanage for girls, and the Chinese TrueSunshine Episcopal Church.
“Leaving that church was more traumatic for mymother than leaving her house. In my lifetime, I onlysaw my mother crying twice. Once was when herbiological mother died, the other time was when theytook away the church property,” says Fran Toy,former resident of the area. “After the church wasmoved, we lost congregation members by the drove.And I remember one Sunday going to church, thepriest and I were the only two people there.”(See
ome is more than simply a place. It is a connection to a community of people, the comforts of familiar sights andsounds, and the sense of belonging. As history has shown us, numerous urban “renewal” efforts in the name ofeliminating blight disregarded people’s visions for their homes, resulting in displacement of individuals and disinte-gration of communities. Today, the trend is to promote transit oriented development (TOD) in the name ofaddressing climate change. But if development is done inequitably, it represents the latest challenge to low-incomecommunities of color.
n
Photo:
Lake Merrit TOD Plan-ning Meeting, LaneyCollege, March 5, 2011.
©2011 Eric K. Arnold
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Race, Poverty & the Environment | Vol. 18 No. 1 — 2011
Running Headline
sidebar on page 66 for a detailed account of Toy’sexperience.)
More recently, tenants received eviction noticesfrom the Pacific Renaissance Plaza in 2003. AsAmber Chan of the Asian Pacific EnvironmentalNetwork (APEN) recalls, “At the time, they evictedlow-income elderly and families from 50 units. Weknew we had to fight to stop the evictions. I remem-ber one tenant saying ‘I am not a dead rat. Youcannot throw me to the street. I will stay here andfight you.’”
Then in 2006, BART decided to demolish itsheadquarters and close down the Lake Merritt stationplaza, leaving the neighborhood without a vital com-munity space for tai-chi, chi gong, and lion dancing.The community collected over 1500 petition signa-tures and raised $35,000 to create a space at MadisonPark, but the funding was not enough to cover otherneeded services, such as public restrooms and acovered pavilion.
Transit Oriented Displacement: Circa 2012Now, Chinatown is once again at the heart of
another development process. The push to develophousing, jobs, and neighborhoods near transit is anopportunity to create green, walkable, transit-friendlycommunities that will reduce car usage and green-house gas emissions. However, development withoutequity can result in the displacement of core transitusers, such as renters and low-income households,and an influx of higher income, car-owning residentswho are less likely to use public transit, therebydefeating the goal of development near transit. Astudy by the Center for Community Innovation atUC Berkeley’s Institute of Urban and RegionalDevelopment has shown that the area around China-town and the Lake Merritt BART station is highlysusceptible to gentrification. Fruitvale and WestOakland are examples of areas that have experiencedrent increases, evictions, and loss of affordablehousing as a result of such development.
Given the history of displacement, there is a lot of
Regionalism: Development and Displacement
n
Photos:
(Above)Lake Merritt TOD Plan-ning Meeting, LaneyCollege, March 5, 2011.
(Below)BART Director RobertRayburn at TOD meet-ing ©2011 Eric K. Arnold
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Race, Poverty & the Environment | Vol. 18 No. 1 — 2011
fear in Chinatown of being excluded from the deci-sion-making during this round of redevelopment.
“When it comes down to the community, the citi-zens who live in Chinatown are usually last,” saysAlan Yee, an Oakland-based attorney, in a recentKALW news report. “In redevelopment, they look tothe developers and what they want and forget whatthe community needs. Unfortunately, when BARTcame in, the community wasn’t organized, so theywere able to take the land without any communityinput or compensation to the community.”1
Organizations, such as APEN, Asian Health Serv-ices (AHS), and East Bay Asian Local DevelopmentCorporation (EBALDC) have worked to organizecommunity members—conducting over 1000 surveysand engaging them in planning workshops—so theyare able to articulate what they would like to see inthe plans.
“Community engagement is definitely importantbecause of the history of these processes in China-town,” states Julia Liou of AHS. “Traditionally, ourcommunities haven’t been part of the planningprocess. Usually, it’s just a flyer that goes out. So, it’simportant to advocate for the needs identified by thecommunity.”
“We really want to see a neighborhood that is aplace where people choose to live and have the abilityto afford to live, regardless of their economic condi-tion,” says Ener Chiu of EBALDC. “The plan shouldprovide the kind of cultural, business, public, andeducational amenities that would make people wantto live here.”
Li Ya Chen, a member of APEN, says, “When Ifirst arrived in the Bay Area, my monthly income wasonly about one thousand dollars, but the rental of aone-bedroom apartment was over $700. It was verydifficult to survive. I heard about low-incomehousing, but I was at a loss because I didn’t knowwhere and how to apply. The Lake Merritt BARTproject should be for people at all income levels.Affordable housing should include extremely low-income folks.”
Shao Yang Zhang, another member of APEN,believes that public safety, employment, and housing
n
Photos:
Oakland’s ChinatownDistrict
©2011 Eric K. Arnold
issues are related to each other.“To solve the problem of publicsafety, we must solve the joband housing issues because theyare the root causes of theproblem,” she points out. “Themore housing complexes, themore supporting facilities youwill need to provide employ-ment opportunities to the local community and helpenhance the people’s standard of living. If everyonehas a job and stable place to live, the crime issue willbe improved. Oakland could become a model city forthe nation.”
In addition to the issues of housing, jobs, andpublic safety, many community members also cite theneed for greater pedestrian safety. “My apartment islocated right next to a crossroad that often has a lot
of car accidents. Two years ago, my neighbor, Mrs.Chan, was hit and killed by a car,” recalls Hai BoPan, another APEN member. “Not long after,another gentleman was hit by a car at the same loca-tion, and he was seriously injured.”
Chinatown, it is important to remember, is notjust a community for Chinese. As Tô Châu, a Viet-namese patient at AHS points out, “Chinatown isimportant because it is an Asian place where I can
Race, Poverty & the Environment | Vol. 18 No. 1 — 2011
66 A former Oakland Chinatown residentremembers the arrival of Bay Area RapidTransit (BART) to her neighborhood.Adapted from an interview with Fran Troyfor a radio documentary on KALW’s Cross-currents by Lindsey Lee Keel.
The three square blocks called MadisonSquare Park was once a thriving neighbor-hood until the wrecking ball of urbanrenewal made way for what is now LakeMerritt BART Station. It is paved over now,but the house where Fran Toy grew upwas right here, where Madison Park istoday.
“I lived there from the moment I camehome from the hospital until four daysbefore my 22nd birthday, when I left toget married,” says Toy, adding that it wasa safe neighborhood of Victorian duplexesand apartment buildings. “We didn’t evenlock our doors!”
Like Toy’s own family, most of the
neighbors were working class, many ofthem immigrants from China. Although shegrew up during the Depression, Toy and hersiblings did not know they were poor.
“We played in the streets a lot becausein the ‘30s there weren’t that many cars. Ithink the guys played ‘kick the can.’ Andwe saved the paper caps from milk bottlesthat were delivered and played with that. Itwas just a very peaceful childhood,” saysToy.
“The majority of us children went towhat we called American school [until] theearly afternoon, then we had a littlebreather, and then we went to Chineseschool before dinner.”
There was always something to do, andfor Toy’s family that included spending a lotof time at the True Sunshine EpiscopalChurch.
“My mother was a very faithful Chris-tian, very devout, and she gave hours tothe church. She volunteered herself and ofcourse, she volunteered her children. So,every Saturday she marched my brother, my
sister, and me from 8th Street, where welived, to the church. And we’d clean thechurch for Sunday services.”
Toy, her sister, and about three otheryoung ladies used to collect the Sundayschool students and walk them to thechurch and then back home. “Like the PiedPiper,” she quips. The congregation wasmainly Cantonese and so was the neigh-borhood. But the tightly knit neighborhoodwas slated for demolition as part of thecity’s plan to eliminate what it called‘urban blight.’
UC Berkeley Geographer Richard Walkerexplains: “In the mid-20th century, Victori-an houses were regarded as old dogs...completely out of fashion and clunky. Sothat’s the kind of mindset of the downtownbusiness people you would have circa1950.” That mindset allowed for a top-down approach to redevelopment. Cityplanners decided to level three blocks tomake way for a new BART station andheadquarters.
“Now there’s also, of course, an unspo-
Transit Oriented Displacement:Circa 1965
Regionalism: Development and Displacement
get food that I can’t get in other areas. I do want itto be improved. Some housing is so old, it is a sadsight. In the next 20 years, I want to see this neigh-borhood improve, and I hope to have more parks.”
The planning process is now moving into thestage where a community stakeholder group—com-prised of about 50 people representing the institu-tions and constituents of the area—will be workingon shaping the plan over the next several months. “Iam hopeful that we can fix the problems together,”says APEN member Hui Zhen Li. “If we can makethis plan meaningful and the city does what itpromises, the area will be beautiful.�n
Endnote 1. http://kalwnews.org/audio/2010/06/16/envisioning-revitalized-chinatown-1960s-
oakland_421045.html
References:n Association of Bay Area Governments, “Development Without Displacement, De-
velopment with Diversity.” December 2009. Page 8.n Center for Community Innovation, “Mapping Susceptibility to Gentrification: The
Early Warning Toolkit.” August 2009. Page 5.n Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, “Maintaining Diversity in America’s
Transit-Rich Neighborhoods: Tools for Equitable Neighborhood Change.” October2010.
n Keel, Lindsay Lee. “A neighborhood displaced by BART.” KALW News, November22, 2010.
n Ma, Eve Armentrout and Ma, Jeong Huei. The Chinese of Oakland: UnsungBuilders. Edited by Forrest Gok and the Oakland Chinese History Research Com-mittee. July 1982.
n Oakland Asian Cultural Center, “Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project.”http://memorymap.oacc.cc/.
n Wilson, Priscilla Yuki. “Madison Park: Building community through Tai Chi in Chi-natown.” KALW News, November 24, 2010.
Race, Poverty & the Environment | Vol. 18 No. 1 — 2011
67
ken (or sometimes pretty straightforward)racism and classism that says, ‘We wannaget rid of these unsavory people’, whetherthey are the new African American popula-tions that had come in during World War IIor the Chinese.”
According to Walker, bringing BART toOakland was a victory for the city but a bigsurprise for most of the residents who wouldbe displaced. “Ordinary people would havehad very little idea of what was going on. Alot of this goes on behind closed doors. Sopeople find out at the last minute.”
Between 1964 and 1966, BART acquiredall the properties on those three blocks, dis-placing 75 Chinese households.
“They were all quite devastated, and itforced them to move elsewhere in Oakland,”Toy recounts, but that was not the hardestpart for her family. “We lost our spiritualhome because this church was right therearound the corner from my home.” It waswhere Toy’s parents met.
“In my whole lifetime I saw my mothercry twice,” she says. “Once when her motherdied, and the second time when the bishop
came to deconsecrate the space because itwas going to be torn down.” The Churchwas demolished and members moved to adifferent building but it was miles away, onLincoln Avenue. “We lost congregationmembers by the droves. I remember oneSunday going to church, and the priest and Iwere the only two people there.” Toy recalls.
The redevelopment of the neighborhoodleft residents sad and angry, but theyresigned themselves to the change and didnot protest. “It was not part of our culture tomobilize and resist, not back in the 1960s,”explains Toy. “When you grow up in aculture where the people at the top haveultimate control... you don’t resist.”
Later generations would resist andindeed transform the way redevelopmentworked.
In the mid sixties, Fran Toy’s family mayhave lost their home and church, but twodecades later, Toy was ordained the firstAsian American female priest in the Episco-pal Church.
The Reverend Dr. Fran Toy is now retiredand the church has found a new home in the
heart of Oakland’s Chinatown—at HarrisonStreet, near 10th. Toy still attends servicesthere every so often. n
n Photo: Fran Toy at the 25th Anniversary of herordination. Courtesy of the Episcopal Church.
Lindsey Lee Keel created this story for a series on Oakland’s Chinatown for KALW’s Crosscurrents. Adapted for print with permission.
n
Photo:
(Opposite page)Lake Merritt TOD Plan-ning Meeting, LaneyCollege, March 5, 2011.
©2011 Eric K. Arnold
Running Headline20th Anniversary Edition
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Photos: (Left) Causa Justa/ Just Cause rally, Oakland, CA. ©2011 CJJC(Upper center) Hands of a farmworker. ©1999 David Bacon (Lower center) Porto Palazzo, Torino, Italy. ©2009 Brian Collier(Upper right) Causa Justa Valentines Day Action. ©2011 CJJC(Lower right) Sierra clearcut. Courtesy of USGS(Front cover, upper) Mural in Oakland. ©2011 Eric Arnold
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