I moved to the Bay Area looking for traces of the sixties: Bob Dylan or Janis Joplin. But things have morphed while I was gone for 45 years. Now it's all about melding of cultures and innovation for the future. It took time to get used to all the Asian and Hispanic faces and language when I realized that whites were close to being in the minority. The children are more often biracial than not. The authentic ethnic restaurants are one sign of the fusion of people and practices, and when I saw these tattered but beautiful paper flags flying in the wind at what looked like a Mexican restaurant, I decided I didn't care any more if they were Tibetan prayer flags or El Salvadorian festival decorations. Bay Area is past being a mixed salad of cultures and is just a jamboree of life from everywhere.
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AuthorWendy Soneson is an Oakland Artist. Her show "Oakland in Transition" will appear at City Hall in May 2018. Also, at Rockridge Library in June 2018. Archives
April 2018
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