The Bayview is a beautiful neighborhood where the fog lifts when the rest of the city sits in its cool gray. It is also one of the last African American neighborhoods in San Francisco.

This area has historically been a site of migration; its original peoples are the Muwekma Ohlone, who traded up and down the coast as seafarers. The promise of work was a major impetus to migrants and immigrants, from those lured by California’s Gold Rush, to Chinese laborers brought in to build railroads, to African Americans arriving from the South during the Great Migration to work at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in the 1940s and 1950s. These significant and subsequent populations make up the core of the Bayview, and, with more recent arrivals from Central America and Southeast Asia, new faces, cuisines, and markets are now part of a changing neighborhood.

In 2018, while planning for this Sounds of California project, San Francisco was in the midst of intense gentrification. As Silicon Valley, situated less than 90 miles away, pulsed with tech start-ups and captured worldwide imagination, the local housing crisis was at its peak. Long-time residents and renters as well as many established families, feeling the inequities of the new economy, moved further inland or left the Bay Area entirely; others sold their homes or businesses in an unprecedented and hungry real estate market. The majority of people adversely affected were communities of color and the elderly.

Prominently visible from the freeway, one can look up to see Section 8 subsidized housing boarded up and sitting on a steep hill—a grim reminder of the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s that brought fear and crime to the neighborhood. The community has a long history of grassroots activism, advocating for greater infrastructure and local knowledge to safeguard the neighborhood’s character. The people of Bayview share a complex history that, in sum, reflects the vitality and sanctuary of their neighborhood as home. In spite of an all-too-familiar urban story of systemic economic and cultural neglect, the Bayview remains alive, with residents who have historic roots and stories and memories that animate not only its history but also its future.

Sounds of California: Bayview wove two curatorial threads together – a community recording day open to artists and cultural and community leaders residing in the Bayview, and a concert that amplified themes of immigration and migration in the music and stories of several different communities.

The project was facilitated by Malik Seneferu (muralist, culture worker, and activist), and Tumani Onabiyi (filmmaker, drummer, and culture worker), who have tirelessly advanced Black identity and cultural expression in the Bay Area for decades. It was through their established relationships with Bayview’s residents that this project came to life. The sites along the waterway, the imposing shipyard docks, the streets, and brilliant murals were invitations to discuss layers of history and inform the project.

The first thread of Sounds of California: Bayview invited community members to share their stories of place. The videos are windows into and testimony to the power of community, culture, and place, emerging as a love letter to a neighborhood.

Another component of the project was a concert designed as a cross-cultural platform, recognizing that migration is a journey to create new homes which builds upon the cultural threads of the places we physically leave behind. We sought to invite audiences to Bayview-Hunters Point, a vibrant corner of the 7x7 miles that make up San Francisco, to challenge stereotypes that have effectively told many to avoid the neighborhood. The concert was hosted by Rhodessa Jones, a beloved San Francisco actor and activist.

About the Author

Lily Kharrazi, Director of Special Initiatives at ACTA, was Curator & Project Lead for the 2018 Sounds of California: Bayview project. Lily is a long-time resident of San Francisco with four decades of experience as an arts and culture worker in the city. This project, she says, reinforces for her that neighborhoods, their streets, and their character have outsized impacts on people, often propelling directions and imagination into the future. Home is a layered concept. The Bayview project was powerfully a place of love.