Diana Wu

JAMMI to Longfellow, but lives 'there' regardless.

Self-ascribed labels: Coffee enthusiast, vegetarian, Oakland history newbie, semi-nomadic/traveler, lefty, feminist, cyclist, ABC. 

Particularly interested in intersections of race, class, gender, citizenship and sexuality in civil rights movements, and how legacies of oppression manifest and evolve across time and space. Interested to learn more on Oakland activism today.

@diwu118

Instagram: http://instagram.com/diwu118

Comments

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Holy moly! “how legacies of oppression manifest and evolve across time and space” sounds eerily like a page on Oakland’s historical demographics I was toying with starting … just a few hours ago (but can’t quite work out how the data should go). I’d like to see a map plotted with where the ruling class vs. working class lived through Oakland’s history, because I think it would help simplify a lot of explanations. Or am I just crazy? Mike

2013-02-05 - Hi again. From a link on the gentrification page, I found a thesis containing some demographic data which may be of interest to you. It’s short, so I might as well paste the relevant bit (from page 20) here:

Title: THE FIRST CYCLE OF GENTRIFICATION IN WEST OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA: 1998-2008 (Jason Zimmerman, San Francisco State University 2009)

Year Total Population Black Population Black as % of Total

1890 48,862 644 1.3

1900 66,960 1,026 1.5

1910 150,174 3,055 2.0

1920 216,261 5,489 2.5

1930 264,083 7,503 2.8

1940 302,163 8,462 2.8

1945 400,935 37,327 9.3

1948 415,000 41,000 10.1

1950 384,575 47,600 12.6

1960 367,548 83,620 22.8

1970 361,561 124,710 34.5

1980 339,337 159,351 47.0

1990 372,242 163,335 43.9

2000 399,484 142,460 35.7

2006 (est.) 377,256 114,342 30.3

Source: Bagwell 2000, US Census Bureau 2000, Self 2003, ACS 2006.

Please pardon the intrusion. - Mike

No intrusion. Maybe if we can track down his sources, we can create some evolving census map like: http://mappingoakland.com/maps.html. As a person who identifies as neither black nor white, I do find it funny that the table was titled 'Oakland Population By Ethnicity' and then carried on to exclusively outline the population number and percentage classified as black. In any case, do you think mapping by class would be more difficult to find? 

 

WELCOME HOME! Sorry I missed you last night.- gk