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From the Editor

Your Inheritance

Judith M. Gallman

Wendy Wheeler

    Beth Bagwell of the Oakland Heritage Alliance gets it exactly right when she says, “The Oakland of today is the result of what Oaklanders of yesterday built or demolished, fostered or neglected. This is our inheritance. What we do with it is our choice.”
    The OHA, which Bagwell helped found, is a nonprofit dedicated to connecting Oakland’s past to its present and future, and that notion intrigued freelancer Linda Childers who embarks on a journey into cultural tourism in her own back yard. In “Minding Our Inheritance,” she presents an East Bay history lesson by using historic landmarks and places and how locals remember and relate to them as her jumping off point. She follows Tina Ramos, the “Tamale Girl,” to Old Oakland and Jefferson Square Park; tags along with George Ong to Chinatown; detours to Brush Street with Andrew and Mary Mousalimas’ to the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption; visits East Oakland and the family of Carter Gilmore, Oakland’s first African-American elected to the City Council; and crosses into Alameda with Gretel Gates, widow of a beloved rabbi, for Island City impressions.
    Childers’ hope is that examining these cultures through their intergenerational perspectives will provide valuable insight into how the past and present link and why the East Bay has become such a glorious melting pot.
    If the modern day appeals more than history, you’re in luck: In the Mix introduces puzzle maker Lee Krasnow, Beej and Chris Cronin’s Kitanica jackets, Lesley Evers’ inspired dresses, the new digs of the Freight & Salvage and “dogumentarian” photographer Kendra Luck and then winds down with a Lakeshore to-do list. Don’t miss William Wong’s oral-history project, a look at municipal dumps as the parks of the future and the review of cocktail-canny Sidebar (where the Zax Tavern goat cheese soufflé lives on).
    It’s all evidence that diverse cultures continue their collision course in today’s Oakland.

judy@oaklandmagazine.com