First Blog

What I knew about the Fruitvale district in Oakland was not much, but what I have known is what has been shown in the news; burglaries, street racing, and shootings. I have never ventured past the Fruitvale BART station, and the Fruitvale station, like most other BART stations in the Bay Area, is not situated in the safest neighborhood. My instinct in the past has been to drive through Fruitvale, not to stop, and certainly not to get out of my car to walk the neighborhood. 

Looking on-line I found an informative website about the Fruitvale district; http://www.unitycouncil.org/. The Unity Council is a non-profit organization located at the Fruitvale Village Plaza adjacent to the BART station. The site is useful because it has links to social service programs, community organizations and events, as well as the history of the Fruitvale district along with a description of the district’s boundaries. 

Using the boundaries of the neighborhood that the Unity Council described I began my first trip to get to know Fruitvale. According the Unity Council, Fruitvale is two and a half square miles. To the west it is bound by 14th Avenue, the Oakland estuary to the south, High Street to the east, and Interstate 580 to the north.

I started my trip by getting off at the Fruitvale Avenue exit off Interstate 880. On the left hand side of Fruitvale there is a new shopping complex; Starbucks, Lucky, etc. Around the shopping center the area was just composed of businesses. Aside from the shopping center and the BART station the streets and the businesses looked rundown and worn out. As I kept driving past the train tracks and the BART station I could not help but notice the numerous amounts of Mexican restaurants (taquerias,) at least one on every corner.

At Productos Mexicanos, a small corner market, a block up from International Boulevard, I got out to people watch. The aroma of barbecue chicken blew up the street with a cool wind from the parking lot of Productos Mexicanos. People stood in line under a big sign “Pollo Asado,” (Grilled Chicken) and waited for the griller to wrap up their whole chickens in tin foil to take them home. 

Within 10 minutes groups of young latin men walked or bicycled by, going to where, I don’t know, conversing in spanish. The air rang with sounds of mariachi, ranchera and reggaeton music blasting from passing cars. Yes this neighborhood is latin – signs in Spanish, building names in Spanish and everyone on the street speaking Spanish. Social service buildings like La Clinica de Jovenes (The Teen Clinic,) is an example of the latin influence on the makeup of the Fruitvale neighborhood. 

As I ventured further up the street to hit the I580 boundary of the Fruitvale district, more homes popped up and the neighborhood itself was cleaner in appearance; more suburban as opposed to urban. 

I drove down 14th Avenue on the western side of the district’s boundaries, mostly residential. On the corner of 18th Avenue and Foothill Boulevard is San Antonio Park. A nice park with tennis and basketball courts with an astro turff soccer field. On the North corner of the park is a neighborhood run vegetable garden that gives the park personality. 

Driving back to the BART station on International Boulevard, the little stores grow more numerous and the houses grow fewer. Traffic crossing Fruitvale Avenue stops and Mexican flags wave up and down the street. Yes it’s the Sunday before Mexican Independence day and people are out in droves. 

In the parking lot of the BART station there is a mechanical bull and wrestling ring with authentic Mexican luchadores (wrestlers.) There are two stages one band playing Banda music and one playing Mariachi. There are dozens of paleteros (ice cream men) cris-crossing in between the crowds of people. The men and women are dressed in cowboy boots and hats as they wave their Mexican flags to the music. 

Fruitvale is a different world; the food, the music and the language are all foreign; it’s a neighborhood rich with culture and pride.