San Francisco, California.
20-28 May 2024
San Francisco is a city with a long and rich history. Founded in 1776 by Spanish settlers, the city was originally named “Yerba Buena” after the native plant that was abundant in the area. In 1846, the city was renamed “San Francisco” after Saint Francis of Assisi.
I visited my son in San Francisco, California where he studies Industrial Design at a local educational institution. Under full scholarship, he will complete his studies in approximately two years. He has a strong desire for an internship and with continued studies at the Graduate School level. We spent time together taking long walks around the city, enjoying the local cuisine, seeing various movies, and visiting several museums that present a variety of artwork.
The city’s history is marked by several major events, including the 1848 Gold Rush, the 1906 earthquake and fire, and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. San Francisco has also been home to a number of important cultural movements and events from the ‘hippie era’ to the current variety of rights movements. Today, San Francisco is one of the most populous cities in the United States and is known for its diverse population, scenic beauty, and liberal politics.
Oracle Park.
Premier Baseball Park in San Francisco.
Oracle Park is a baseball stadium in the SoMa district of San Francisco, California. It is widely regarded as one of the premier ballparks in all of baseball. Since 2000, it has been the ballpark of Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants. Previously named Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park, and AT&T Park, the stadium’s current name was purchased by the Oracle Corporation in 2019. The stadium stands along the San Francisco Bay; the section of the bay beyond Oracle Park’s right field wall is unofficially known as McCovey Cove, in honor of former Giants player Willie McCovey.
Oracle Park has also hosted professional and collegiate American football games. The stadium was the home of the annual college postseason bowl game now known as the Redbox Bowl from its inaugural playing in 2002 until 2013, and also served as the temporary home for the University of California’s football team in 2011. Professionally, it was the home of the San Francisco Demons of the XFL and the California Redwoods of the United Football League.
City of San Francisco.
Diversity and Population Statistics.
The city of San Francisco is located in Alameda County, Marin County, and San Francisco County California. As ie county seat of San Francisco County, it has a 2024 population of 746,481. The single largest ethnic minority group of San Francisco is the Chinese with a population of 21.4%. Other major Asian groups include: Filipinos (4.5%), Vietnamese (1.6%), Japanese (1.3%), Asian Indians (1.2%), Koreans (1.2%), Thais (0.3%), Burmese (0.2%) and Cambodians (0.2%).
Interestingly, native-born Californians make up a relatively small percentage of San Francisco’s population, as only 37.7% of its people were born in the state, while 25.2% were born in another state in the USA, and over one-third of San Francisco’s population were born outside the USA. Because San Francisco’s non-Hispanics make up less than half of its total population, San Francisco is now a minority-majority city. The most common Hispanic groups include Mexicans (7.4%), Salvadoran (2.0%), Nicaraguan (0.9%) and Guatemalan (0.8%). The African American population of the city has dropped over the past few decades, from a vibrant 13.4% in 1970 to just 6.1% today.
Baseball Theme.
San Francisco Giants Most Celebrated Player.
Without a shadow of a doubt, no player is more synonymous with the Giants organization than Willie Mays. The ‘Say Hey Kid’ is probably the best center fielder in baseball history, and his career accolades are seemingly never-ending. In 21 seasons with the Giants Mays slashed .304/.385/.564 with 646 of his 660 career home runs. He was the 1951 NL Rookie of the Year, won MVP awards in ’54 and ’65, and participated in 23 all-star games in a Giants uniform. He won the batting title in 1954–the same season he earned his only World Series championship ring. Mays led the league in homers four times, stolen bases four times, and triples three times.
In addition to his immense offensive accomplishments, Mays is incredibly just as remembered for his defense. He earned 12 Gold Glove awards and almost everyone reading this has certainly seen videos of some of his memorable catches. Mays is the Giants all-time leader in games played, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, homers, and offensive WAR. His number 24 was obviously retired by this organization, and he’ll forever be royalty in both New York and San Francisco.
Counter Culture.
Epicenter of the Beat Poets’ Movement and Innovations in Music.
Since the mid-20th century, San Francisco gained global renown as a hub for counterculture. In the 1950s, it was the epicenter of the Beat poets’ movement, and in the 1960s the Bay Area music scene featured featured many iconic bands. In the 1960s the Black culture featured in “The Summer of Love” in 1967. A celebration of the counter-culture of the times, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people, hippies, beatniks converged in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district.
The city was then filled with the undercurrents of radical social change and political activism, a time filled with music, style, and opportunities in the entertainment industry. Later when the long arm of “redevelopment” in the city began, displaced blacks in the Fillmore saw many moving to the Haight-Ashbury district located just south of Golden Gate Park, and became part of an emerging alternative lifestyles in that area. The black influence that once helped to shape the city’s culture, though unforgettable, unfortunately, suffered a visible decline.
San Franciso, CA.
Changing Neighborhoods: Ethnic Enclaves.
Ethnic enclaves exist throughout the world. They are growing, expanding a measure of culture from foreign lands to many countries. The same is happening in San Francisco. These enclaves are specific localities where ethnic minorities congregate. Viewed instrumentally, they provide interactive centers in society, and aid in the retention of cultural norms (including language), offer work, and allow for participation in community activities, to include religious and cultural organizations.
But little is mentioned of the opportunities they provided to interact with others of diverse backgrounds; to adjust and learn how to collaborate, to communicate on ways to enhance society together. Such collective effort to enhance the positive and enjoy the benefit derived from learning to appreciate a vast and complex diverse humanity will help in reconciling differences. This will do much to elevate awareness of that to be accrued from establishing cross-cultural relationships.
