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Article Evaluation

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Edits Outline:

Title: Clear and concise

Introduction: Short, but very informative and to the point.

Life and Work: discussed a ton of useful information, sentence structure/fragments/run-on sentences,missing citations, links and citations listed worked

Criticism: first sentence comes off very bias, but it could be what the paragraph is supposed to represent. Other than that well written paragraph, again missing citations

Censorship: look for name of exhibition that got censored. Some sentence structure issues- well written paragraph other than that

Influences: Well written section, links worked, citations were accurate

There was not many view points that were over represented but one that stood out was her habitual drug use and how it influenced the youth. I understand that her drug addiction led to her yearn for photography, but I am not sure how the correlation between her drug use and influencing the youth is important.

I was not able to check all the sources, but the ones I did check were from books. Some of the books won awards while some of the books had little recognition at all but sources seemed to offer facts and evidence.

There is not much discussion on the talk page but the discussion that is there is in regards to edits of the article and conversations questioning the reliability of some sources ..

The article was rated start class/low importance. It was noted that this article is a BLP, Biography of a Living Person. and is poorly sourced and was forced to be removed.

This article discusses the influence of sex and drugs in drag queen, queer culture and how that inspired the life/career of a Jewish photographer. Who was also rebellious of the norm./standards set upon people

Maybe a section discussing what she is doing today in life. Mentions her growth of her career, how she got started, but doe snot really mention what she is doing today as of 2018 or even 2017. (Aside from movies, books, and edits)

The article is a part of the wiki education foundation, wiki project women artists, wikiproject LGBT studies, wikiproject history of photography, wikiproject us/dc, and wikiproject biography/arts and entertainment.

Article Edit:

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Nan Goldin

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nan Goldin
Goldin, 2009
Born September 12, 1953 (age 64)

Washington D.C., United States

Nationality American
Known for Photography
Notable work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1986)
Awards Edward MacDowell Medal

2012

Hasselblad Award

2007 French Legion of Honor2006

Nancy "Nan" Goldin (born September 12, 1953) is an American photographer. She lives and works in New York City, Berlin, and Paris. Her work usually features LGBT-related themes, images or public figures.

Contents

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Life and work[edit]

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(The Hug, NYC, 1980, cibachrome, by Goldin. ) ? Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston suburb of Lexington, to middle-class Jewish parents. Goldin’s father worked in broadcasting, and served as the chief economist for the Federal Communications Commission. After attending the nearby Lexington High School, Goldin left home at 13-14. She enrolled at the Satya Community School in Lincoln, where a teacher, philosopher Rollo May’s daughter, introduced her to the camera in 1968; Goldin was then fifteen years old. Goldin’s need to photograph and express herself to the world stemmed from her older sister Barbara’s suicide when she was only 11 years old. Struggling from such a horrific loss, Goldin went through a stage of using drugs to cope, until she fell in love with the camera, which changed her life forever. It was through her photography that Goldin found meaning, and she cherished her relationships with those she photographed. She also found the camera as a useful political tool, in order to inform the public about important issues silenced in America (O'Hagan, Sean. "Nan Goldin: 'I Wanted to Get High from a Really Early Age'"). Her early influences were Andy Warhol's early films, Federico Fellini, Jack Smith, French and Italian Vogue, Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton.

Her first solo show, held in Boston in 1973, was based on her photographic journeys among the city's gay and transsexual communities, to which she had been introduced by her friend David Armstrong. While living in downtown Boston at age 18, Goldin “fell in with the drag queens,” (citation?) living with them and photographing them. Unlike some photographers who were interested in psychoanalyzing or exposing the queens, Goldin admired and respected their sexuality. Goldin said, “My desire was to show them as a third gender, as another sexual option, a gender option. And to show them with a lot of respect and love, to kind of glorify them because I really admire people who can recreate themselves and manifest their fantasies publicly. I think it’s brave”(citation?). Goldin admitted to being romantically in love with a queen during this period of her life in a Q&A with “BOMB,” “I remember going through a psychology book trying to find something about it when I was nineteen. There was one little chapter about it in an abnormal psych book that made it sound so… I don’t know what they ascribed it to, but it was so bizarre. And that’s where I was at that time in my life. I lived with them; it was my whole focus. Everything I did -- that’s who I was all the time. And that’s who I wanted to be”. Goldin describes her life as being completely immersed in the queens’. However, upon attending the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, when her professors told her to go back and photograph queens again, Goldin admitted her work was not the same as when she had lived with them. Goldin graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1977/1978, where she had worked mostly with Cibachrome prints. Her work from this period is associated with the Boston School of photography.

Following graduation, Goldin moved to New York City. She began documenting the post-punk new-wave music scene, along with the city's vibrant, post-Stonewall gay subculture of the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was drawn especially to the hard-drug subculture of the Bowery neighborhood; these photographs, taken between 1979 and 1986, form her famous work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency — a title taken from a song in Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera. Published with help from Marvin Heiferman, Mark Holborn, and Suzanne Fletcher, these snapshot aesthetic images depict drug use, violent, aggressive couples and autobiographical moments. In her foreword to the book she describes it as a “diary [she] lets people read” of people she referred to as her “tribe”. Part of Ballad was driven by the need to remember her extended family. Photography was a way for her to hold onto her friends, she hoped. The photographs show a transition through Goldin’s travels and her life. Most of her Ballad subjects were dead by the 1990s, lost either to drug overdose or AIDS; this tally included close friends and often-photographed subjects Greer Lankton and Cookie Mueller. In 2003, The New York Times nodded to the work's impact, explaining Goldin had "forged a genre, with photography as influential as any in the last twenty years." In addition to Ballad, she combined her Bowery pictures in two other series: I'll Be Your Mirror (from a song on The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground & Nico album) and All By Myself.

Goldin's work is most often presented in the form of a slideshow, and has been shown at film festivals; her most famous being a 45-minute show in which 800 pictures are displayed. The main themes of her early pictures are love, gender, domesticity, and sexuality; these frames are usually shot with available light. She has affectionately documented women looking in mirrors, girls in bathrooms and barrooms, drag queens, sexual acts, and the culture of obsession and dependency. The images are viewed like a private journal made public. In the book Auto-Focus, her photographs are described as a way to “learn the stories and intimate details of those closest to her”. It speaks of her uncompromising manner and style when photographing acts such as drug use, sex, violence, arguments, and traveling. It references one of Goldin’s famous photographs 'Nan One Month After Being Battered, 1984' as an iconic image which she uses to reclaim her identity and her life.

Since 1995 Goldin's work has included a wide array of subject matter: collaborative book projects with Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki; New York City skylines; uncanny landscapes (notably of people in water); her lover, Siobhan; and babies, parenthood and family life.

In 2000, her hand was injured and she currently retains less ability to turn it than in the past. Christmas at the Other Side, Boston, 1972, by Goldin. In 2006, her exhibition, Chasing a Ghost, opened in New York. It was the first installation by her to include moving pictures, a fully narrative score, and voiceover, and included the three-screen slide and video presentation Sisters, Saints, & Sybils which has been described as disturbing.[citation needed] The work involved her sister Barbara's suicide and how she coped through production of numerous images and narratives. Her works are developing more and more into cinemaesque features, exemplifying her gravitation towards working with films.

Goldin has also undertaken commercial fashion photography – for Australian label Scanlan & Theodore's spring/summer 2010 campaign, shot with model Erin Wasson; for Italian luxury label Bottega Veneta's spring/summer 2010 campaign with models Sean O'Pry and Anya Kazakova, evoking memories of her Ballad of Sexual Dependency; for shoemaker Jimmy Choo in 2011 with model Linda Vojtova; and for Dior in 2013, 1000 LIVES, featuring Robert Pattinson.

In 2017, in a speech in Brazil, Goldin revealed she was recovering from opioid addiction. This led to her setting up a campaign called 'Prescription Addiction Intervention Now' (PAIN) pursuing social media activism directed against the Sackler family for their involvement in Purdue Pharma, manufacturers of OxyContin. Goldin has said the campaign attempts to contrast the philanthropic contributions of the Sackler family to art galleries, museums and universities with a lack of responsibility taken for the opioid crisis.

Criticism[edit]

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Some critics have accused Goldin of making heroin use appear glamorous and of pioneering a grunge style that later became popularized by youth fashion magazines such as The Face and I-D (consider rewriting sentence). However, in a 2002 interview with The Observer, Goldin herself called the use of "heroin chic" to sell clothes and perfumes "reprehensible and evil." Goldin admits to having a romanticized image of drug culture at a young age, but she soon saw the error in this ideal: “I had a totally romantic notion of being a junkie. I wanted to be one.” Goldin’s substance usage stopped after she became intrigued with the idea of memory in her work, “When people talk about the immediacy in my work, that’s what its about: this need to remember and record every single thing”[citation needed](interview with "The Observer" (?) Goldin's interest in drugs stemmed from a sort of rebellion against parental guidance that parallels her decision to run away from home at a young age, "I wanted to get high from a really early age. I wanted to be a junkie. That's what intrigues me. Part was the Velvet Underground and the Beats and all that stuff. But, really, I wanted to be as different from my mother as I could and define myself as far as possible from the suburban life I was brought up in." (citation needed)

Goldin denies the role of voyeur; she is instead a queer insider sharing the same experiences as her subjects: “I’m not crashing; this is my party. This is my family, my history.” She insists her subjects have veto power over what she exhibits. In Fantastic Tales Liz Kotz criticizes Goldin's claim that she is just as much a part of what she is photographing rather than exploiting her subjects. Goldin’s insistence on intimacy between artist and subject is an attempt to re-legitimize the codes and conventions of social documentary, presumably by ridding them of their problematic enmeshment with the histories of social surveillance and coercion, says Kotz. [Her] insider status does nothing to alter the way her pictures convert her audience into voyeurs. (citation needed)

Censorship[edit] (add more to section)

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An exhibition of Goldin's work was censored in Brazil (get exhibition name), two months before opening, due to its sexually explicit nature. The main reason was that some of the photographs contained sexual acts performed near children. In Brazil, there is a law that prohibits the image of minors associated with pornography. The sponsor of the exhibition, a cellphone company, claimed to be unaware of the content of Goldin's work and that there was a conflict between the work and its educational project. The curator of the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art changed the schedule in order to accommodate the Goldin exhibition in Brazil February 2012.

Influences[edit] (add a small sentence or paragraph to introduce the people/topic?)

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ex (Goldin was influenced by many people in her life varying from drag queens, to specific photographers and artists but the most influential to her and her work are listed below: )

Diane Arbus[edit]

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Both Goldin and Diane Arbus celebrate those who live marginal lives. Stills from Variety are compared to Arbus’ magazine work; the Variety series portray “the rich collision of music, club life, and art production of the Lower East Side pre and post AIDS period”. Both artists ask to reexamine artists' intentionality.

Michelangelo Antonioni[edit]

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One of the reasons Goldin began photographing was Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up (1966). The sexuality and glamour of the film exerted a “huge effect” on her. Referring to images shown in Ballad, "the beaten down and beaten up personages, with their gritty, disheveled miens, which populate these early pictures, often photographed in the dark and dank, ramshackle interiors, relate physically and emotionally to the alienated and marginal character types that attracted Antonioni"

Larry Clark[edit]

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The youths in Larry Clark's Tulsa (1971) presented a striking contrast to any wholesome, down-home stereotype of the heartland that captured the collective American imagination. He turned the camera on himself and his lowlife amphetamine-shooting board of hanger-ons. Goldin would adopt Clark’s approach to image-making.

Recognition[edit]

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Awards[edit]

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Collection[edit]

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Portrayal in film[edit] (Goldin's work in films)

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The photographs by the character Lucy Berliner, played by actress Ally Sheedy in the 1998 film High Art, were based on those by Goldin.

The photographs shown in the film, Working Girls (1986) as taken by the lead character "Molly," were actually those of Goldin.

Publications[edit]

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Books by Goldin[edit]

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Books with contributions by Goldin[edit]

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Selected solo exhibitions[edit]

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Exhibitions curated by Goldin[edit]

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  • 1991: From Desire: A Queer Diary, Richard F. Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY[citation needed]
  • Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing, November 16, 1989 – January 6, 1990. New York artists responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis, with work by David Armstrong, Tom Chesley, Dorit Cypris, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, Jane Dickson, Darrel Ellis, Allen Frame, Peter Hujar, Greer Lankton, Siobhan Liddel, James Nares, Perico Pastor, Margo Pelletier, Clarence Elie Rivera, Vittorio Scarpati, Jo Shane, Kiki Smith, Janet Stein, Stephen Tashjian, Shellburne Thurber, Ken Tisa, David Wojnarowicz. Wojnarowicz’s essay “Post Cards from America: X-Rays from Hell” in the Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing exhibition ignited the controversy of this exhibition, by criticizing conservative policymakers for legislation that Wojnarowicz believed would increase the spread of the disease by discouraging safe sex education. Additionally, it speaks about the efficacy of making the private public. Both artists’ politics derive from the model of “outing" which was essential to the gay rights movement: empowerment begins through self-disclosure and the personal becomes political. Both artists use private relations to disrupt oppressive rules of behaviour of bourgeois society even as they fear that such private revelations will lock their subjects into frozen identities. Goldin asked artists to submit pieces that they felt reflected how they responded to the AIDS epidemic. The responses varied, "out of loss comes memory pieces, tributes to friends and lovers who have died; out of anger comes explorations of the political cause and effects of the disease"(Goldin,1989).

Peer Review

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Hey Gabby,

I really enjoyed your artist photographs. I didn't quite understand why she took very sexual photography but after reading and learning a little about her background and who inspired her artwork I know understand why she took very sexual pictures of herself and others. However, I think you should add citations to support all the quotations. It would make your article more reliable to those interested in your artist more. Great choice in the artist and keep up the hard work! ~~~~LizSantillan30

As I have done more research on my artist, I have found out that she herself was struggling with an addiction of her own and chose to live a specific type of lifestyle and surround herself with people alike from similar and the same communities. Her art and photography was her way of telling her life story vicariously through other peoples real life situations while also incorporating herself in a lot of her work. I have also worked on finding the proper citations for my article as well while also adding some of my own citations and facts as well. Gabbsterxoxo (talk) 21:58, 12 March 2018 (UTC)gabbsterxoxo


Peer Review

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Hey Gabby, never realized how interesting Nan Goldin's life was and feel deeply for the loss of her sister at such a young age. With all the struggles that she faced, it is good to see that she was able to overcome everything and make something big out of herself. One thing that I would recommend is to expand on Goldin's influences and how they influenced her and in which ways. Another would be if any other work of hers has been censored by other exhibits. Dreasalvador (talk) 04:40, 12 March 2018 (UTC)


Hi Andrea, I too am very proud and happy she was and still is able to overcome obstacles thrown her way. After some research I found out she was heavily influenced by those around her. She was battling with demons of her own similar to the people that were in her life; the ones she was living with and hanging out with, many of whom were artist themselves. Mark Morrisroe was an artist and friend of Goldin whom influenced her work and is even seen in a photo of hers titled "Mark Dirt as a Blond, NYC". Gabbsterxoxo (talk) 22:08, 12 March 2018 (UTC)gabbsterxoxo

Copy Edit Article - (Chinatown, Oakland)

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Suggested changes/possible sources listed below:

Peer Review/Suggested Article Improvements

Lead -Very well organized and offers a lout of information, but where did all this information come from? Input necessary citations where needed. -Good sentence structure

History -good citations(maybe missing some)/credible sources used; look at source formatting in some sentences-double check that -very informative -offers a lot of information, but may offer too much information. Look into making separate sections where expanding on idea is necessary(i.e. the expansion of Japanese and other Asian immigrants into certain communities in Oakland and throughout the Bay Area, like S.F.)

People and Culture -Look into mentioning common practices from all ethnicitys represented within the community "Chinatown, Oakland" -enjoy how it is straight to the point with information under each sub-heading -great use of built in links, check citations for information under each sub heading

Geography -Citations -very informative, check sentence structure

Government -maybe add something as to why that is important, look into changing order of paragraphs to offer more understanding of section -offers great information and cited properly

Infrastructure -check citations -well written, good sentence structure, but incomplete-change headers or make more clear..... add to primary and secondary schools section?

All in all, very well written article. With necessary citation changes and revisions this will be the perfect article! Gabbsterxoxo (talk) 08:06, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Peer Review Rough Bibliography[edit]

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Complied list of source links I am thinking about using when I edit this article: Plague, Fear, and Politics in San Francisco's Chinatown - https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxylib.csueastbay.edu/lib/csueastbay/reader.action?docID=3318629&query= From "Moving Feels Like Home" to "We Will Not Be Moved!": Immigrant Communities Facing Evictions and the Role of Young People's Organizing, Oakland Chinatown, California, 2003-2005 -https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3rf939qj Oakland's Chinatown knows no bounds-http://go.galegroup.com.proxylib.csueastbay.edu/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA15324029&v=2.1&u=csuh_main&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w&authCount=1

I know one of the sources will for sure work because it is a book, but the others one I am worried do not fit the Wikipedia guidelines although both are peer reviewed, credible sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabbsterxoxo (talkcontribs) 08:42, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

  1. Jump up^
  2. Jump up^
  3. Jump up^ "Challenges to Mainstream Health Care in Oakland's Underserved Communities". State of Health - KQED news. Retrieved 14 February 2018.

Chinatown, Oakland

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 37°48′00″N 122°16′13″W

Oakland Chinatown

屋崙華埠

Neighborhood of Oakland
Legendary Palace restaurant at the corner of Franklin and 7th st in Oakland.
Location of Oakland's Chinatown in the City of Oakland.
Oakland Chinatown

Location within California

Coordinates: 37°48′00″N 122°16′13″W
Country United States
State California
County Alameda
Metro Area the San Francisco Bay Area
City Oakland
Settled 1850
Annexed 1852
Government
• District 2 Councilmember Abel J. Guillen
Elevation 34 ft (10 m)
Time zone PST (UTC-8)
• Summer (DST) PDT (UTC-7)
ZIP code 94607
Area code(s) 510
BART Stations Oakland City Center/12th Street, Lake Merritt
Website Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce

The Chinatown neighborhood in Oakland, CaliforniaChinese: 屋崙華埠), is a pan-Asian neighborhood which reflects Oakland's diverse Asian American community. It is frequently referred to as "Oakland Chinatown" in order to distinguish it from nearby San Francisco's Chinatown. It lies at an elevation of 39 feet (12 m).

Chinese were the first Asians to arrive in Oakland in the 1850s, followed by Japanese in the 1890s, Koreans in the 1900s, and Filipinos in the 1930s and 1940s. Southeast Asians began arriving in the 1970s during the Vietnam War. Many Asian languages and dialects can be heard in Chinatown due to its diverse population.

Chinatown is located in downtown Oakland, with its center at 8th Street and Webster Street. Its northern edge is 12th Street, and its southern edge is Interstate 880 (located approximately at 6th Street). It stretches from Broadway on the west to the southern tip of Lake Merritt in the east.

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History[edit]

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Oakland Chinatown dates back to the arrival of Chinese immigrants in the 1850s, making it one of the oldest Chinatowns in North America. By 1860, the census of Oakland included 96 "Asiatics" among a total of 1,543 (6.2% of the city's population). More Chinese arrived to help build the Central Pacific Railroad western portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad during the Coolie slave trade during the 1860s.

The Chinese settled in shrimp camps on the estuary of Oakland at 1st Street and Castro in the 1850s, near the Point in West Oakland which was referred to as "Chinese Point", and at 4th and Clay streets. The Chinese settlement at Telegraph between 16th and 17th streets burnt down in 1867 and was relocated at the San Pablo Avenue Chinatown between 19th and 20th streets; it is now known as Oakland's Old Uptown Chinatown. Other areas settled were 14th Street between Washington and Clay, and the Charter line (22nd Street) between Castro and Brush Streets.

Fears of the Yellow Peril and local exclusion laws forced the Chinese population to resettle to its current location centered at 8th Street and Webster Street in the 1870s.

The first Chinese in Oakland fished in the San Francisco Bay for shrimp similarly to the Chinese at China Camp near San Rafael.In 1868, Chinese laborers built the Temescal Dam in Oakland providing water for the East Bay as well as the Lake Chabot Dam in 1874–75. They worked in canneries, cotton mills and fuse and explosive factories as well as farms. In the 1880s, discriminatory laws made it difficult for Chinese immigrants to own land or even find work. They found work as laundry workers, cooks, gardeners, houseboys, or as vegetable peddlers. The Chinese Exclusion Act severely limited the further immigration of Chinese. By 1900, the Chinese in Oakland numbered less than 1,000.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed most of San Francisco's Chinatown and more than 4,000 Chinese survivors found refuge in Oakland. Even while San Francisco Chinatown was rebuilding, many stayed in Oakland, bringing the Chinatown population to about 2,500. Because of immigration restrictions barring Chinese women and children, a bachelor society was created.

In the 1920s, Oakland Chinatown grew from 10th Street to the waterfront from Broadway to Harrison.

Even until 1940, the Chinatown population grew only to about 3,000. With the United States involvement in World War II and the fact that China was an ally, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943, however the immigration quota was maintained at 105 immigrants per year.

In 1950, Chinatown grew to a population of 5,500, but local housing was lost due to the construction of Interstate 880, which runs through 8 blocks between 5th and 6th streets and serves as a transportation artery for some of Chinatown's commercial activity, Laney College (8 blocks) and later in the late 1960s, the Bay Area Rapid Transit headquarters and Lake Merritt station (2 blocks) and Oakland Museum of California (4 blocks).

Oakland Chinatown was economically stagnant for many years, especially after multigenerational Chinatown residents began moving to the suburbs in the late 1960s. However, Chinatown saw much steady development during the 1980s and 1990s as Chinese American merchants relocated from San Francisco to Oakland, and due to increased immigration from mainland China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. During this time period, many ethnic Chinese Vietnamese and Chinese Cambodians began opening new small businesses, essentially replacing many of the older Taishanese-dominated businesses. Also, investors with Hong Kong backgrounds constructed the Pacific Renaissance Plaza in the early 1990s. Chinatown still retains the traditional aspects and characteristics of an older Chinatown. Oakland's Chinatown also includes a historic and still thriving fortune cookiefactory.

Although it is overshadowed by its more prominent, tourist-oriented counterpart in San Francisco, Oakland's Chinatown is bustling with activity and considered to be more authentic to many. Other Asian cultures are represented in Oakland's Chinatown as it has also been settled by non-Chinese Asians such as ethnic Vietnamese (many of whom operate many of Chinatown's jewelry businesses), Koreans, and Thais making it more of a pan-Asian area as opposed to a "Chinatown." As is the case with other retail and commercial districts around Oakland, the many customers and thriving businesses in Chinatown generate sales tax revenue for Oakland city and Redevelopment Agency coffers.

Japanese immigrants began settling in Oakland in the 1890s mostly in West Oakland around Market Street. Later, hundreds were living in the section between Harrison and Oak streets south of 8th Street. They owned several stores in Chinatown. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, all Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps. The Masuda family had posted a large "I Am An American" sign outside their Oakland grocery store, Wanto Company, at 8th and Franklin streets which was photographed by Dorothea Lange. Many did not return to Oakland after the war ended. The Buddhist Church of Oakland is one of the few institutions remaining of Oakland's Japantown.

Filipinos immigrated to the area in the early 1900s. Oakland Chinatown was the center of commerce and community gathering for Filipinos in the East Bay during 1940–1960.

People and culture[edit]

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The residents of Oakland Chinatown include Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Filipino, Japanese, Cambodian, Laotian, Mien, Thai, Samoan and others. Consequently, many languages and dialects can be heard, including Cantonese, Chiu-Chow, Ilocano, Japanese, Khmer, Khmu, Korean, Lao, Malay, Mandarin, Mien, Tagalog, Taiwanese, Thai, Toishan, and Vietnamese.

Annual cultural events and fairs[edit]

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A crowded sidewalk during the 2006 Chinatown StreetFest.

Chinese Community United Methodist Church[edit]

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The Chinese Community United Methodist Church (CCUMC), which was initially the Chinese Methodist Church was founded in 1887. The church was established as part of a chain of Methodist Chinese Missions by the Rev. Dr. Otis Gibson. The two primary missions of this ministry was schools and refuge for women escaping slavery and prostitution. This church has close connections with the Women's Missionary Society of the Pacific Coast in San Francisco. In the early days, the Chinese Methodist Church held worship service and Sunday School. Then to serve the needs of the growing Chinese community, an English school for immigrants, and a Chinese school for the American-born Chinese also operated. The early days of the church was sustained by courageous workers, both Chinese- and American-born as there were strong anti-Chinese sentiments in California at this time.

The church was located at several sites in Oakland Chinatown. Chan Hon Fun was the pastor from 1900 to 1909 and established the church's current location in 1905 at 321 8th Street Oakland, CA 94607. In 1913, a fire devastated the building and a new building was erected. But by the 1940s, the church outgrew even this building. Under the leadership of Rev Edwar Lee, a new church and the current main sanctuary was built in 1952. With more growth, more space was needed, and a new social hall and classrooms annex was built in 1970.

Today, the Chinese Community United Methodist Church conducts both a Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin) language worship service and English worship service on Sundays.

Performing arts[edit]

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Chinese opera was one of the first traditional Chinese art forms in Oakland. In 1907, a Chinese Theater at 9th and Franklin streets opened which could seat 500 people and had a company of 30 full-time actors from China. Today, three styles of Chinese opera clubs are active in Oakland: Cantonese opera, Beijing opera, and Kunqu.

Pacific Renaissance Plaza[edit]

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Pacific Renaissance Plaza in Oakland Chinatown contains the Asian Branch Library and Oakland Asian Cultural Center. A plaza built by Hong Kong investors in the 1990s, this plaza is often viewed as the center of Oakland Chinatown, it consists of many restaurants, a library, jewelry store, bank, ice creamery, and other health services.

Libraries[edit]

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The Asian Branch Library is one of many of Oakland Public Library's branches and is located in Chinatown's "Pacific Renaissance Plaza."The Asian Library is unique among public library branches in the United States as it houses eight Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian, Tagalog and Laotian) in major reference titles and general subject titles, an Asian Studies collection, in addition to an English-language Asian American collection.

The Asian Branch Library was founded in 1975 as part of a Federal Library Services Construction Act grant to create a model library serving the Asian community in Oakland with multilingual staff and collections. In 1978, the branch moved from its original location at the Park Boulevard to the Main Library. In 1981, it moved to its own building at 9th Street and Broadway. The current location in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza opened to the public in 1995.

Notable natives and residents[edit]

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Geography[edit]

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Chinese and English street signs in Chinatown.

Chinatown is located in Downtown between Broadway to the west, Interstate 880 to the south, Oak Street and Laney College to the east, and 12th Street to the north. The entrance to the Webster Tube, which carries traffic underneath the estuary, is on the edge of Chinatown. Unlike many Chinatowns, it has no formal arch (Paifang) or gate, but it does have bilingual street signs.

The neighborhood can be roughly divided into two distinct areas: Between Broadway and Harrison Street is the commercial area, with busy streets lined with markets, restaurants, banks, and other businesses. East of Harrison Street, the neighborhood is more residential in character with more apartments and condominiums, less crowded sidewalks, and a mix of retail stores that are more service and product oriented, with fewer groceries and restaurants. Though the mainstay of commercial activity is south of 10th Street, there are nonetheless many retail shops, stores, and restaurtants north of 10th Street and in other parts of Downtown Oakland which are owned by Chinese and Korean merchants. In particular at the edge of Chinatown, 14th street between Webster and Harrison is block which features numerous Korean restaurants and businesses, especially on the north side of the block.

Recent immigrants have also moved south into "New Oakland Chinatown" in the San Antonio neighborhood along International Boulevard (formerly East 14th Street) and Eastlake business district on East 18th Street.

Government[edit]

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Representatives[edit]

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Police and fire[edit]

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The Oakland Police Department's Administration Building is located at 455 Seventh St.

Chinatown is in Oakland Police Department's Beat 3X. The Community Services Section hosts the Asian Advisory Committee on Crime and the Asian Youth Services Committee.

The Chinatown Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council for beat 3x, a neighborhood community-policing board meets monthly. Meetings are conducted in Cantonese and are open to all.

Oakland Fire Department, Fire Station No. 12 is located at 822 Alice Street at 9th Street. Fire Engine 12 is assigned to this fire station. The citizens of Oakland and the Oakland Fire Department will remember the service and sacrifice of Oakland Engine Company No. 12. Hoseman Tracy Toomey who died in the line of duty on January 10, 1999 in a 2-story building collapse after responding to a 6-alarm fire on upper Broadway.

Infrastructure[edit]

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Transportation[edit]

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Located at the crossroads of the 880 freeway, the tubes linking Alameda and Oakland, and downtown, Oakland Chinatown bears a significant transportation burden that dates back to the 1950s. Weekday and everyday commerce in the area creates thousands of peak period private automobile trips daily and resulting air pollution impacts on the neighborhood's elderly residents. Over 20,000 shoppers and tourists use its sidewalks every weekend. The traffic on I-880 is over 100,000 cars per day. The neighborhood is served by a freeway on-ramp to I-880 south at 5th and Oak Street. It is also served by a freeway on-ramp to I-980 at 6th and Jackson. Recently Oakland's Public Works Agency reconfigured travel lanes on Jackson Street to separate traffic travelling South on Jackson from traffic merging-into Jackson from Eastbound 7th Street. This effectively eliminated, through lane re-marking, any possibility of the lost art of the "alternating merge." The volume of automobile traffic travelling away from the core of Chinatown on 7th street towards the freeway connections was so voluminous and unrelenting, that accidents were occurring.

Chinatown has the highest number of automobile-pedestrian collisions in the City of Oakland. A pedestrian safety campaign brought in the first scramble system in Alameda County to Oakland Chinatown to prevent further pedestrian fatalities and injuries.

Until recently, California Auto Insurance company actuarial models charged higher rates to residents in the Chinatown's zip code under a practice known as territorial rating, or zip code profiling. The insurance actuarial theory behind this market practice purports that drivers residing or "principally garaging" their cars in a certain area face a greater loss and accident ratio. This practice, was outlawed by California voters in 1988 by Proposition 103 on the statewide ballot. The law made its way through the courts for 18 years before several insurance companies settled with California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi in 2006 to put an end to the practice.

Oakland is served by several AC Transit bus lines which run on 7th, 8th, 11th, 12th, Broadway, and Franklin Streets. Many visitors to the neighborhood use nearby mass transit connections. The neighborhood has two BART stations: 12th Street Station on its northwest corner, and Lake Merritt Station at its eastern edge.

Education[edit]

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Primary and secondary schools[edit]

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Public schools[edit]
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Residents of Chinatown are zoned to schools in the Oakland Unified School District. Zoned schools include [1]:

American Indian Public Charter School II, a charter school campus of the American Indian Model Schools system, is located in Chinatown. It caters to students living in the Chinatown and Lake Merritt areas. In 2008 it shared a campus with Oakland Charter Academies (now Amethod Public Schools).

The Lighthouse Community Charter School was established in Oakland's Chinatown in the 2004 – 2005 school year with grades K-2 and 6–8 and later expanded to serve grades K – 12. In the 2009–2010 school year, the school relocated to a facility close to the Oakland airport.

Yu Ming Charter School, a Mandarin immersion charter school, currently serves grades K through 4. It will eventually grow to K through 8 by adding a grade every year. Formerly located at 321 10th Street, the school moved to 1086 Alcatraz Avenue in February 2013.

Colleges and universities[edit]

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Other education services[edit]

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This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
  • The Mun Fu Yuen "Chinese school" has after school and weekend classes in Cantonese and Mandarin to promote the Chinese language and culture at the Shoong Family Chinese Cultural Center on 9th Street at Harrison. The Center was established in 1953 by philanthropist Joe Shoong with the support of the Oakland Chinese community. It is the original and longest established Chinese school in Oakland with graduates that have contributed much towards the welfare of our Oakland community.

Healthcare Services and Options[edit]

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A source of healthcare for the surrounding community include Asian Health Services. Since 1974, they have provided the densely populated Asian community with health services including mental health, dental care, advocacy and opportunities to participate in community leadership. "To serve and advocate for the medically underserved, including the immigrant and refugee Asian community...", is an integral part of their mission statement

See also[edit]

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chinatown, Oakland, California.

References[edit]

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Books[edit]

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Websites[edit]

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  1. Jump up^ Oakland's Old Uptown Chinatown
  2. Jump up^ China Camp State Park
  3. Jump up^
  4. Jump up^ Downtown Oakland Japanese American Businesses of 1940 with a detailed inset map of Oakland Chinatown. Japantown Atlas. Accessed 2010-08-14.
  5. Jump up^ "I Am An American" photo by Dorothea Lange
  6. Jump up^ Buddhist Church of Oakland website
  7. Jump up^ Buell EC, Luluquisen E, Galedo, L, Luis EH, and the Filipino American National Historical Society East Bay Chapter. Filipinos in the East Bay, Images of America series. Arcadia Publishing. 2008. ISBN 978-0-7385-5832-5
  8. Jump up^ Oakland Chinatown StreetFest website
  9. Jump up^
  10. Jump up^
  11. Jump up^
  12. Jump up^ Asian Branch Library website
  13. Jump up^ http://www.assembly.ca.gov
  14. Jump up^ About Alice Lai-Bitker – District 3 – Board of Supervisors – Alameda County
  15. Jump up^ City of Oakland Officials
  16. Jump up^ City Council District 2 map Archived 2005-12-13 at the Wayback Machine.
  17. Jump up^ Beat 3x website
  18. Jump up^ Asian Youth Service Committee
  19. Jump up^ Community Services Section at http://oaklandpolice.com
  20. Jump up^ Oakland Fire Department: Home Archived 2005-05-07 at the Wayback Machine.
  21. Jump up^ UC Berkeley Pedestrian scramble evaluation Archived 2005-04-26 at the Wayback Machine.
  22. Jump up^ Allyson K. Bechtel, Kara E. MacLeod, and David R. Ragland, "Oakland Chinatown Pedestrian Scramble: An Evaluation" (December 17, 2003). U.C. Berkeley Traffic Safety Center. Paper UCB-TSC-RR-2003-06. http://repositories.cdlib.org/its/tsc/UCB-TSC-RR-2003-06
  23. Jump up^ Katz, Alex. "Chinatown school beating odds Lincoln Elementary in select group to be honored for achievement gains." Oakland Tribune. Saturday January 7, 2006. Retrieved on September 9, 2011.
  24. Jump up^ "LINCOLN Elementary School Boundaries Archived 2012-04-02 at the Wayback Machine.." Oakland Unified School District. Retrieved on September 11, 2011.
  25. Jump up^ "WESTLAKE Middle School Boundaries Archived 2012-04-02 at the Wayback Machine.." Oakland Unified School District. Retrieved on September 11, 2011.
  26. Jump up^ "OAKLAND TECHNICAL High School Boundaries Archived 2012-04-02 at the Wayback Machine.." Oakland Unified School District. Retrieved on September 11, 2011.
  27. ^ Jump up to:a b Murphy, Katy. "Oakland charter schools get high marks and skepticism." The Oakland Tribune. Monday November 3, 2008. Retrieved on September 11, 2011.
  28. Jump up^ "Family Handbook Archived April 2, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.." American Indian Public Charter School II. 4. Updated June 22, 2009. Retrieved on September 9, 2011.
  29. Jump up^ Lighthouse Community Charter School website
  30. Jump up^
  31. Jump up^ Yu Ming website
  32. Jump up^

Further reading[edit]

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  • Ah-Tye, Howard (1999). Resourceful Chinese. Matai Group.
  • Chann, Ernest (1976). "Brief History of Oakland Chinatown." Unpublished monograph. At Oakland Public Library, Oakland History Room.
  • Chow, Willard T. (June 1, 1977). The Reemergence of an Inner City: The Pivot of Chinese Settlement in the East Bay Region of the San Francisco Bay Area. R & E Pub. ISBN 0-88247-457-X
  • Ma, L. Eva Armentrout (January 1, 2001). Hometown Chinatown: A History of Oakland's Chinese Community, 1852–1995. (Asian Americans). Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8153-3760-4
  • Wong, William (2001). "Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America." Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-830-4

External links[edit]

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Chinese American topics

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Oakland, California neighborhoods

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Chinatowns in the United States

Authority control

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