Building Transit Oriented Community in Oakland’s Chinatown

By Vivian Huang

ome is more than simply a place. It is a connection to a community of people, the comforts of familiar sights and H sounds, and the sense of belonging. As history has shown us, numerous urban “renewal” efforts in the name of eliminating 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 of addressing climate change. But if development is done inequitably, it represents the latest challenge to low-income communities of color.

Oakland Chinatown’s history is one of survival in because as time continues to march forward, much the midst of continual acts of displacement. The first knowledge has been lost to the current residents. Chinese immigrants who formed various Chinatowns “The reason why we wanted to tell a complete story in Oakland during the 1850s had been driven from of the blocks that used to be there is because more the fields of the Gold Rush by racist, hostile miners. recent immigrants do not have any idea of what hap - Later, intense racism would cause some of these Chi - pened,” says Chan. 63 natowns to move—as with the settlement at San “The Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project is Pablo Avenue and 19th Street—or be eliminated a way to personalize and humanize the story—to altogether—as when the Chinatown at Telegraph show that these were real homes that were built over Avenue and 17th Street burned down. Eventually, the the decades and taken away,” he explains. “We want Chinese community was consolidated in the area to equip the community to know its own history and around 8th and Webster Streets. to speak on its own behalf.” Roy Chan of the Oakland Asian Cultural Center A key turning point for the neighborhood came in has been documenting this history, particularly the mid 1960s. In 1965, the (BART) agency, working with the city, redeveloped three blocks in Chinatown—demolishing existing buildings and relocating Madison Square Park to create the Merritt BART station and BART headquarters. Destroyed in the process were 75 homes, an orphanage for girls, and the Chinese True Sunshine Episcopal Church. “Leaving that church was more traumatic for my mother than leaving her house. In my lifetime, I only n saw my mother crying twice. Once was when her

biological mother died, the other time was when they Photo: took away the church property,” says Fran Toy,

former resident of the area. “After the church was Lake Merrit TOD Plan - moved, we lost congregation members by the drove. ning Meeting, , March 5, 2011. And I remember one Sunday going to church, the priest and I were the only two people there.”(See ©2011 Eric K. Arnold

Race, Poverty & the Environment | Vol. 18 No. 1 — 2011 Ruegninoinagl iHsema:d Dlienve elopment and Displacement

sidebar on page 66 for a detailed account of Toy’s Then in 2006, BART decided to demolish its experience.) headquarters and close down the More recently, tenants received eviction notices plaza, leaving the neighborhood without a vital com - from the Pacific Renaissance Plaza in 2003. As munity space for tai-chi, chi gong, and lion dancing. Amber Chan of the Asian Pacific Environmental The community collected over 1500 petition signa - Network (APEN) recalls, “At the time, they evicted tures and raised $35,000 to create a space at Madison low-income elderly and families from 50 units. We Park, but the funding was not enough to cover other 64 knew we had to fight to stop the evictions. I remem - needed services, such as public restrooms and a ber one tenant saying ‘I am not a dead rat. You covered pavilion. cannot throw me to the street. I will stay here and fight you.’” Transit Oriented Displacement: Circa 2012 Now, Chinatown is once again at the heart of another development process. The push to develop housing, jobs, and neighborhoods near transit is an opportunity to create green, walkable, transit-friendly communities that will reduce car usage and green - house gas emissions. However, development without equity can result in the displacement of core transit users, such as renters and low-income households, and an influx of higher income, car-owning residents n who are less likely to use public transit, thereby Photos: defeating the goal of development near transit. A

(Above) study by the Center for Community Innovation at Lake Merritt TOD Plan - UC Berkeley’s Institute of Urban and Regional ning Meeting, Laney College, March 5, 2011. Development has shown that the area around China - town and the Lake Merritt BART station is highly (Below) BART Director Robert susceptible to gentrification. Fruitvale and West Rayburn at TOD meet - Oakland are examples of areas that have experienced ing ©2011 Eric K. Arnold rent increases, evictions, and loss of affordable housing as a result of such development. Given the history of displacement, there is a lot of

Race, Poverty & the Environment | Vol. 18 No. 1 — 2011 fear in Chinatown of being excluded from the deci - Li Ya Chen, a member of APEN, says, “When I sion-making during this round of redevelopment . first arrived in the Bay Area, my monthly income was “When it comes down to the community, the citi - only about one thousand dollars, but the rental of a zens who live in Chinatown are usually last,” says one-bedroom apartment was over $700. It was very Alan Yee, an Oakland-based attorney, in a recent difficult to survive. I heard about low-income KALW news report. “In redevelopment, they look to housing, but I was at a loss because I didn’t know the developers and what they want and forget what where and how to apply. The Lake Merritt BART the community needs. Unfortunately, when BART project should be for people at all income levels. 65 came in, the community wasn’t organized, so they Affordable housing should include extremely low- were able to take the land without any community income folks.” input or compensation to the community.” 1 Shao Yang Zhang, another member of APEN, Organizations, such as APEN, Asian Health Serv - believes that public safety, employment, and housing ices (AHS), and East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) have worked to organize community members—conducting over 1000 surveys and engaging them in planning workshops—so they are able to articulate what they would like to see in the plans. “Community engagement is definitely important because of the history of these processes in China - town,” states Julia Liou of AHS. “Traditionally, our communities haven’t been part of the planning process. Usually, it’s just a flyer that goes out. So, it’s important to advocate for the needs identified by the community.” “We really want to see a neighborhood that is a place where people choose to live and have the ability n to afford to live, regardless of their economic condi - Photos: tion,” says Ener Chiu of EBALDC. “The plan should Oakland’s Chinatown provide the kind of cultural, business, public, and District educational amenities that would make people want ©2011 Eric K. Arnold to live here.”

Race, Poverty & the Environment | Vol. 18 No. 1 — 2011 Regionalism: Development and Displacement

issues are related to each other. “To solve the problem of public safety, we must solve the job and housing issues because they are the root causes of the problem,” she points out. “The more housing complexes, the more supporting facilities you will need to provide employ - ment opportunities to the local community and help of car accidents. Two years ago, my neighbor, Mrs. enhance the people’s standard of living. If everyone Chan, was hit and killed by a car,” recalls Hai Bo has a job and stable place to live, the crime issue will Pan, another APEN member. “Not long after, be improved. Oakland could become a model city for another gentleman was hit by a car at the same loca - the nation.” tion, and he was seriously injured.” In addition to the issues of housing, jobs, and Chinatown, it is important to remember, is not public safety, many community members also cite the just a community for Chinese. As Tô Châu, a Viet - need for greater pedestrian safety. “My apartment is namese patient at AHS points out, “Chinatown is located right next to a crossroad that often has a lot important because it is an Asian place where I can

Transit Oriented Displacement: Circa 1965 neighbors were working class, many of sister, and me from 8th Street, where we them immigrants from China. Although she lived, to the church. And we’d clean the 66 A former Oakland Chinatown resident grew up during the Depression, Toy and her church for Sunday services.” remembers the arrival of Bay Area Rapid siblings did not know they were poor. Toy, her sister, and about three other Transit (BART) to her neighborhood. “We played in the streets a lot because young ladies used to collect the Sunday Adapted from an interview with Fran Troy in the ‘30s there weren’t that many cars. I school students and walk them to the for a radio documentary on KALW’s Cross - think the guys played ‘kick the can.’ And church and then back home. “Like the Pied currents by Lindsey Lee Keel. we saved the paper caps from milk bottles Piper,” she quips. The congregation was that were delivered and played with that. It mainly Cantonese and so was the neigh - The three square blocks called Madison was just a very peaceful childhood,” says borhood. But the tightly knit neighborhood Square Park was once a thriving neighbor - Toy. was slated for demolition as part of the hood until the wrecking ball of urban “The majority of us children went to city’s plan to eliminate what it called renewal made way for what is now Lake what we called American school [until] the ‘urban blight.’ Merritt BART Station. It is paved over now, early afternoon, then we had a little UC Berkeley Geographer Richard Walker but the house where Fran Toy grew up breather, and then we went to Chinese explains: “In the mid-20th century, Victori - was right here, where Madison Park is school before dinner.” an houses were regarded as old dogs... today. There was always something to do, and completely out of fashion and clunky. So “I lived there from the moment I came for Toy’s family that included spending a lot that’s the kind of mindset of the downtown home from the hospital until four days of time at the True Sunshine Episcopal business people you would have circa before my 22nd birthday, when I left to Church. 1950.” That mindset allowed for a top- get married,” says Toy, adding that it was “My mother was a very faithful Chris - down approach to redevelopment. City a safe neighborhood of Victorian duplexes tian, very devout, and she gave hours to planners decided to level three blocks to and apartment buildings. “We didn’t even the church. She volunteered herself and of make way for a new BART station and lock our doors!” course, she volunteered her children. So, headquarters. Like Toy’s own family, most of the every Saturday she marched my brother, my “Now there’s also, of course, an unspo -

Race, Poverty & the Environment | Vol. 18 No. 1 — 2011 get food that I can’t get in other areas. I do want it References: to be improved. Some housing is so old, it is a sad n Association of Bay Area Governments, “Development Without Displacement, De - sight. In the next 20 years, I want to see this neigh - velopment with Diversity.” December 2009. Page 8. n Center for Community Innovation, “Mapping Susceptibility to Gentrification: The borhood improve, and I hope to have more parks.” Early Warning Toolkit.” August 2009. Page 5. The planning process is now moving into the n Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, “Maintaining Diversity in America’s stage where a community stakeholder group—com - Transit-Rich Neighborhoods: Tools for Equitable Neighborhood Change.” October prised of about 50 people representing the institu - 2010. n Keel, Lindsay Lee. “A neighborhood displaced by BART.” KALW News, November tions and constituents of the area—will be working 22, 2010. n on shaping the plan over the next several months. “I n Ma, Eve Armentrout and Ma, Jeong Huei. The Chinese of Oakland: Unsung am hopeful that we can fix the problems together,” Builders . Edited by Forrest Gok and the Oakland Chinese History Research Com - mittee. July 1982. Photo: says APEN member Hui Zhen Li. “If we can make n Oakland Asian Cultural Center, “Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project.” this plan meaningful and the city does what it http://memorymap.oacc.cc/. (Opposite page) promises, the area will be beautiful. n n Wilson, Priscilla Yuki. “Madison Park: Building community through Tai Chi in Chi - Lake Merritt TOD Plan - natown.” KALW News, November 24, 2010. ning Meeting, Laney College, March 5, 2011. Endnote 1. http://kalwnews.org/audio/2010/06/16/envisioning-revitalized-chinatown-1960s- ©2011 Eric K. Arnold oakland_421045.html

ken (or sometimes pretty straightforward) came to deconsecrate the space because it heart of Oakland’s Chinatown—at Harrison racism and classism that says, ‘We wanna was going to be torn down.” The Church Street, near 10th. Toy still attends services get rid of these unsavory people’, whether was demolished and members moved to a there every so often. n they are the new African American popula - different building but it was miles away, on 67 tions that had come in during World War II Lincoln Avenue. “We lost congregation or the Chinese.” members by the droves. I remember one According to Walker, bringing BART to Sunday going to church, and the priest and I Oakland was a victory for the city but a big were the only two people there.” Toy recalls. surprise for most of the residents who would The redevelopment of the neighborhood be displaced. “Ordinary people would have left residents sad and angry, but they had very little idea of what was going on. A resigned themselves to the change and did lot of this goes on behind closed doors. So not protest. “It was not part of our culture to people find out at the last minute.” mobilize and resist, not back in the 1960s,” Between 1964 and 1966, BART acquired explains Toy. “When you grow up in a all the properties on those three blocks, dis - culture where the people at the top have placing 75 Chinese households. ultimate control... you don’t resist.” “They were all quite devastated, and it Later generations would resist and forced them to move elsewhere in Oakland,” indeed transform the way redevelopment Toy recounts, but that was not the hardest worked. part for her family. “We lost our spiritual In the mid sixties, Fran Toy’s family may home because this church was right there have lost their home and church, but two around the corner from my home.” It was decades later, Toy was ordained the first where Toy’s parents met. Asian American female priest in the Episco - “In my whole lifetime I saw my mother pal Church.

cry twice,” she says. “Once when her mother The Reverend Dr. Fran Toy is now retired n Photo: Fran Toy at the 25th Anniversary of her died, and the second time when the bishop and the church has found a new home in the ordination. 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.

Race, Poverty & the Environment | Vol. 18 No. 1 — 2011 R20utnhn Ainngn Hiveeardslairnye Edition the Race, Poverty the national journal for social & Environment and environmental justice

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Photos: (Left) Causa Justa/ Just Cause rally, Oakland, CA. ©2011 CJJC (Upper center) Hands of a farmworker. ©1999 David Bacon Economic Development Climate Justice (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 Vol. 18 No. 1 | 2011 Printed on processed chlorine-free paper 50% post-consumer fiber, 100% recycled A Project of Race, Poverty Urban the Habitat & Environment www.urbanhabitat.org the national journal for social and environmental justice Celebrating our 21st anniversary!

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