Immigration
For one night, dancers at Oakland’s Skyline High School transported the auditorium’s occupants to the shores of West Africa with rhythmic drumming that reverberated through the room. Dancers stomped and moved rapidly across the stage, their energy captivating their audience. Then came the mystical sounds of the Kura, a West African 21-string instrument, which when plucked makes sounds similar to those of a harp and a guitar. This was the 20th Annual Collage des Cultures Africaines (Collage of African Cultures),…
Photo Essay about the life of Kiflay Habte, an Eritrean barber living in North Oakland.
President Barack Obama’s recent executive order defers the deportation of undocumented parents of American citizens or legal permanent residents who have been in the country for at least five years. This is expected to affect approximately 4 million undocumented immigrants, but excludes approximately 7 million others, according to a recent report on NPR. Among those excluded are the tens of thousands of unaccompanied child and teenage migrants that arrived to the U.S. border earlier this year. The Oakland-based Social Justice Collaborative (SJC)—a nonprofit…
As word spread through Richmond, Oakland and other East Bay cities with large immigrant populations of the President’s executive orders easing some restrictions of federal immigration policy, families and support groups affected by the new orders reacted with a mix of relief and disappointment.
Creating an altar can be a private ritual, but altars have also become a platform for people to express their views on social and political issues, especially those that involve death.
Nigerian Independence Day is Oct. 1, but for U.C. Berkeley Nigerians the party took place a few days later, at a hall near campus. It was a party crowded with people and colors from Nigeria and the rest of the African continent. You saw young Nigerian women in their bubas, the Nigerian blouses; their iros, wrap skirts; which in Yoruba usually worn with gele, the head wrap. People sang the national anthem. The smells of the broiled beefsteaks, platters of…
“Hey hey, ho ho, it’s time to pass the TPO!” The chant rang out in front of Oakland City Hall, inside the building itself, and in the city council chambers as marchers in support of the Tenant Protection Ordinance made their way to Tuesday night’s council meeting. At the council’s final meeting before the November election, they considered the Tenant Protection Ordinance, passed another ordinance that will protect unaccompanied minors at risk of deportation, and discussed updates on the Coliseum…
Covered California will end health insurance plans for thousands of Bay Area immigrants who didn’t submit residency forms by September 30, 2014.
Bay Area artists created a pop-up art installation honoring the Ethiopian and Eritrean new year.