San Francisco

Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana: Politics, Identity and Faith in New Immigrant Communities

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by Lois Ann Larentzen, Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III, Kevin M. Chun, Hien Duc Do

Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana, a collection of essays on the religious activities and identity formation of immigrants to the United States, is the fruit of a four-year study conducted by researchers from the Religion and Immigration Project (TRIP) at the University of San Francisco. Very ambitious in their scope, the essays explore the multiple and complex ways that religion plays both in integration and resistance to it in the second-generation immigrant youth and adults from Mexico, China, Vietnam, El Salvador, and Taiwan.

Two of the essays reflect on marginalized groups in their own countries: amongst them gay, lesbian, and transgender people. Immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador keep in touch with their communities across the border, frequently visiting their family and friends to maintain trans-national connections. Researchers focused on social justice by giving voice to immigrants’ concerns, especially on matters of gender and sexuality.

Transgender sex workers from Mexico often bring their religious icons and pendants (for example, the Virgen de Guadalupe) to San Francisco. Some of them also bring their prayer booklet for the Holy Death. These relics signify their own culture, origins and religion left behind in Mexico.

There are many low working class immigrants from Latin America who attend a mass conducted in Spanish in the Pentecostal churches. They are encouraged to be exemplary citizens in their new country, to ask questions, to give testimonials and to pray for surviving their daily life struggles. Even though the church music is similar to cumbia, merengue and samba the members believe that this ‘culture’ is secondary to the culture of Christianity. Through social movements, the Pentecostal churches help immigrants to adopt a more tolerant and progressive attitude towards gender roles or childbearing duty.

Filipinos are mostly Christians, following the rituals and dogmas of the Catholic church, brought to their country by Spanish friars or religious orders such as the Order of Saint Augustine in 1564, the Jesuits in 1581 and the Dominicans in 1587. With the American occupation of 1898 the Protestant church was founded in the Philippines. Yet the faithful there created their own Global Church of Christ where reading the Gospels was of main importance. In San Francisco, Filipinos are mostly associated with the Catholic churches in the area known as “Happy Valley.”

Bi-national same-sex couples, illustrated by the case of two men from China and Singapore, can easily find the gay church in San Francisco. It is much more than the centre of a religious community; it advocates human rights for new lesbian, gay, and transgender immigrants.

The Presbyterian Mission Program targeted low-income, first generation Chinese youth residing in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Bay Area suburbs whose families originate in Taiwan and mainland China. There is also a Buddhist temple that serves as a network for the monasteries, schools and Buddhist book publications. Vietnamese American migrants have a Buddhist temple in San José, California, home to the second-largest concentration of immigrants from Vietnam in the United States.

Chinese-American venerated a goddess from the vast Chinese folk pantheon. She is known by her imperial title of Tianhou although her more familiar name is Mazu/Mazupo. The cult of Tianhou is based on the worship of a maiden named Lin Moniang who is said to have lived from 960 to 987. She had magical powers and was transformed from a mortal girl to the Empress of Heaven. In 1986 Taiwanese-Chinese immigrants established a temple to Tianhoe/Mazu that symbolically marks the collective identity of Asian immigrants.

The current study is very well researched and employs up to date theoretical frameworks. The immigrant acculturation theory explores the multiple religions, cultural and national identities in a language accessible to both academics and non-academics.

In spite of its tremendous and ambitious goal, Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana is not difficult to follow its daunting 372 pages. The writers did a fantastic job by reflecting on the different religious practices of the wide variety of immigrants in San Francisco. I was pleasantly surprised that such a difficult and complex theme kept me absorbed at all times.

Written by: Anna Hamling, March 14th 2010

A Community Organizer's Tale: People and Power in San Francisco

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By Mike Miller

Heyday Books

A Community Organizer’s Tale: People and Power in San Francisco is a radical history with a heap of theory folded in and a touch of imagery. It would be fascinating and informative to anyone interested in community organizing, housing issues, ethnic and labor struggles, civil rights, the history of San Francisco, or community-friendly city planning. The author, a San Francisco native, has been deeply involved in community organizing in the area for most of seventy-two years. He has a long resume of primary and supportive positions with communities, many central to famous movements and connected to famous organizers in San Francisco and other cities. He touches on details of his experience during the '60s in significant famous events in the civil rights and labor movements and the climates that developed into one another consecutively.

Major connections are revisited several times, which was helpful for me since I am a reader without a lot of previous understanding of the timing or significance of all the events, as well as terms like urban renewal and model cities. Strategies of urban renewal and model cities, for example, have had different outcomes for each city, depending on how the greater number of individuals and cohesive organizations in the communities responded. If you are wondering what Miller’s opinion of those strategies is, it’s not all good, at least not historically. He presents the simple, logical, and real reasons why.

In addition to describing what was going on nationally and how the top organizers worked, Miller tells of his experience as an organizer, emphasizing his various organizations goals and what political and economic decisions meant for middle class workers, minorities, unemployed, and homeowners and tenants in various communities. If you live in or are familiar with San Francisco, you might be tickled or heartbroken by truths revealed about causes of change in particular neighborhoods. Individual churches, blocks, restaurants, and business people are painted in a favorable light. One of my favorite lines depicting neighborhood politics is where he states, “We were regulars there, so the owner didn’t mind his cook taking breaks to be a community leader.” My other favorite line is a quote before the introduction, a former New York Governor on community organizing: “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer... I don’t even know if that’s a job.”

This would be a great educational piece for interested students, or workers in the field. That is, anyone wanting to get up to speed on what has happened in community organizing in San Francisco, Chicago, and nationally. I recommend it to anyone wanting to be part of the future of this movement, because history really does inspire greatness.

Written by: Heather Irvine, December 23rd 2009

Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:02:00 +0000

Edited by Annice Jacoby

Abrams Publisher

I have to admit: laziness compelled me to review this book. It is, after all, a book on murals, containing over 500 illustrations. How difficult could that be? Plus, I spent one month in 2002 as an intern at the Women’s Building in San Francisco’s Mission District. The Women’s Building is aglow with a brightly colored mural of women, hovering powerfully over the sidewalks. I had also gone on the Precipita Eyes mural tour. I had some sense of what to expect then. I had no idea, however, that I would devour Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo, text and all, from the first page to the last.

I had another misconception about this book: What could possibly be the feminist angle in a book on murals? I was pleasantly surprised, then, to find some feminist perspectives weaved, albeit in small amounts, throughout the book. For example, some of the women painted murals to teach children where food came from, and this contrasted with the male-centered murals dominating the District. The book also shared stories of how women got taunted for climbing scaffolding and how the artists of the Maestrapeace on the Women’s Building painted without any safety equipment, due to financial constraints.

However, the main gist of the book is the rebellious yet incredibly expressive quality of graffiti, pop art, cartoons, stencils and murals. Despite police harassment of graffiti artists, corporate control of billboards and wall space, and capitalism in the art world, the artists of the Mission District stand firm, fight back even, in their own distinctive ways. They fight back against issues such as imperialism, ignorance, capitalism, racism, sexism, etc. The residents also deal with issues of an unjust criminal justice system, immigration issues and gentrification through their public art. Drawing and painting offered an expressive outlet with far-reaching effects like community building, an alternative to violence and an opportunity to raise awareness—in their own voices.

The book is 304 pages, which covers over three decades of street art. It’s written by over twenty activists and artists, including a foreword by Carlos Santana, who grew up in the District. I came away from reading this book with a renewed interest in public art and a better appreciation for graffiti artists. I bet this book will pleasantly surprise readers, especially those interested in the mix of art and social justice issues.

Written by: Joan Dawson, November 4th 2009

Newcomer's Handbook for Moving to and Living in the San Francisco Bay Area

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:00:00 +0000

By Scott van Velsor

First Books

The Newcomer's Handbook for Moving to and Living in the San Francisco Bay Area covers just about every aspect of living in and around San Francisco. I mean everything! Including "Moving and Storage," “Getting Settled,” "Children and Education,” “Sports and Recreation,” “Transportation” and everything in between, this thick book answers almost any question about San Francisco.

The introduction to the book is just as cool: “San Francisco is the land of the 49er Gold Rush, the Great 1906 earthquake, and the missionary expeditions of the Spanish; it is the birthplace of Levi’s jeans and home of the railroad tycoon Leland Stanford; it is host to one of the greatest feats of engineering, the Golden Gate Bridge, and as a cultural epicenter, it fueled the hippie flower-power revolution, gave rise to Rolling Stone magazine, and played host to beat generation poets.” Geez, now I want to move to San Francisco!

This guide to “America’s melting pot” provides information about the local lingo, so you will not feel too much like an out-of-towner. For example, “The Haight” is the famous Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, “The City,” always capitalized, “is the way natives and local newspapers refer to San Francisco” and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is “the under-and-above ground subway-style train network that connects the East Bay and peninsula with San Francisco.”

This guide also provides detailed information concerning the many municipalities of San Francisco, including web sites, area codes, zip codes, post offices, police stations, emergency hospitals, libraries, public schools, community resources and public transportation. The "Cultural Life" section is also pretty cool, providing tons of information about film festivals, music, theater, ballet and dance, restaurants, nightclubs, comedy, art, museums and anything else you can think of. San Francisco is one cool town, and this book is undoubtedly the perfect guide to moving there!

Written by: Kent Page McGroarty, August 2nd 2007

Woman of Ill Fame

admin — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:36:00 +0000

By Erika Mailman

Heyday Books

Nora Simms is a prostitute who comes to San Francisco in 1848, during the Gold Rush. She starts as a "crib girl," working in a row house with several other prostitutes. One of Nora's aims is to work in a parlor house. Parlor houses are more upscale bordellos, frequented by men with more education than the miners Nora serviced. To achieve this goal, Nora begins speaking with a fake French accent. She takes lessons from another crib girl and meets a professor who sweeps her off her feet. Nora also wins the affections of Abe, a gentle, mildly retarded man. After several prostitutes are murdered, Nora begins to fear that the killer may be after her. Her quest to find the killer, and to keep herself and her fellow hookers safe, provides much of the action in the latter part of the book.

I found this book interesting because it mixes genres so well. It is historical fiction, painstakingly researched by Mailman. It is also a sort of mystery book, and there are elements of romance. The book is told from Nora's point of view and explores some of the problems facing American women during the nineteenth century. I found it hard to read at times because the dialogue is all in the colloquial language of the era where it is set. This did not prevent me from following the story, however. I found the story compelling enough to go on reading. Nora is torn between her life of prostitution and her desire to be wealthy. Mailman does a good job of chronicling that conflict. This is Mailman's first novel. She has another forthcoming this year, and I look forward to following her work.

Written by: Steve Watson, February 10th 2007