Rachel Loyd

Thousands turn out for Women’s March Oakland to support women, human rights

Despite the gloomy weather, tens of thousands gathered at Madison Park near downtown Oakland on Saturday to participate in one of the three branches of Women’s March Bay Area, a demonstration to support women and human rights. The three Bay Area marches—in Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose—are among the more than 600 locally-organized “sister marches” of the Women’s March on Washington, which is now expected to draw as many as half a million participants. The marches are nonpartisan and…

Oakland Ballet Company to host second annual East Bay Dances

On April 17, the Oakland Ballet Company will be hosting the second annual East Bay Dances Showcase. This showcase is meant to highlight the diversity of artistry and dance in the East Bay. The event will feature multiple dance groups from the East Bay including Oakland Ballet, AXIS Dance Company, Diablo Ballet, Jubilee American Dance Theatre, The Milissa Payne Project, Patty Chu’s Chinese Folk Dance, Quicksilver Dance, and Savage Jazz Dance Company. Graham Lustig, the show’s producer and artistic director…

Valentine’s Day Special at Oakland Animal Services encourages cat and dog adoption

OAS is an open admission shelter that takes in all animals brought in by the public or an animal control officer. “We’ve seen a significant uptake in the number of owner surrenders,” said Rebecca Katz, director of the shelter. “Gentrification has been good for Oakland’s economy, but there are people who are impacted by it negatively and there are people losing their homes.”

Vocal Rush blurs the line between a cappella and activism

Founded in 2011 at the Oakland School of the Arts, the group is made up of high school students at the charter school. They have won the International Championship of High School A Cappella (ICHSA) three times, including this year in April. In 2013, they placed third on NBC’s The Sing-Off, a televised a cappella competition between some of the best musical ensembles in the country. With the level of success they’ve garnered, the group has decided to use their art as a form of activism: “aca-activism,” that is.

Koreana Plaza Market

Thursday, 11 a.m. at Koreana Plaza Market was quiet. The fish-stocker went about his daily routine, organizing the freezers and cleaning the crab tanks. An elderly couple, a man and a woman, shuffled their way to the ice-filled buckets laden with the fresh catch of the day – wide-mouthed catfish, red-eyed snapper, slimy black eel. The couple had a mission: To find the perfect salmon. As the fish-stocker nestled jars of clam meat into the ice chips, the woman began…

Nia Imara sheds light on Oakland through art

Born in East Oakland and raised in the Bay Area, Imara is an astronomer and a researcher at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, holding the prestigious title of a Harvard-MIT Future Faculty Leader Postdoctoral Fellow. Not only was she was the first African American woman to get a Ph.D. in astrophysics from UC Berkeley, but she is also a self-taught painter.

Trove of Japanese internment photos prompt search for surviving elders

During his years of internment at Heart Mountain, Jimi Yamaichi mastered living in a frozen world. He insulated his barrack with ice. He substituted cold cow dung for cement. He grew summer vegetables in below-zero temperatures. He stood perfectly still when guards at the Heart Mountain War Relocation Camp ordered him to pack his belongings and prepare to be transferred to Tule Lake War Relocation Center. At least, he thought, it would be warmer. “I kept my street clothes on…