Oakland North TV

Local boutique owner designs clothing with sustainable materials

Field Day and Friends is a local boutique that is part workshop, part brick and mortar store. Trinity Cross, owner and designer, creates her own patterns for women’s clothing using reused and sustainable fabrics. Cross searches for a variety of different fabrics, which means many of her designs are one-of-a kind.

Annual Lunar New Year Bazaar held in Oakland’s Chinatown

It was a rainy week, and people were itching to head outdoors by the time Saturday rolled around. Many found themselves drawn to the hubbub at the center of Oakland Chinatown, where the annual Lunar New Year Bazaar was held. Offered two weeks shy of Chinese New Year, the street fair is meant to usher in the popular holiday as Chinese American families began their preparations.

Oakland’s Mongolian School enrolls 100th student

Founded in April 2009, the Ger Youth Center is a non-profit organization based in Oakland dedicated to preserving and promoting traditional Mongolian visual and performing arts, culture and language among Bay Area Mongolian and Mongolian-American youth. Its flagship program, the Bi Mongol — or “I am Mongolian” — School operates out of the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. The school offers biweekly classes in art, dancing, Mongolian language, chess, and more. The Ger Youth Center also coordinates a variety of cultural events open…

Will a controversial FEMA plan to cut eucalyptus reduce the danger of another hills firestorm?

In over 40 years working at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Mike Martin, now Alameda County battalion chief, has never seen anything like October 20, 1991 in the hills east of Oakland and Berkeley. “Extreme fire conditions, high-velocity wind,” Martin recalls. The 20 to 30 miles per hour winds, with gusts of up to 40, blew west through narrow East Bay canyons stricken by drought and a heavy frost the previous winter that killed thousands of non-native…

Oakland school district approves new kitchen to create fresher meals

The school district’s recently-approved Central Kitchen, Instructional Farm and Education Center Project is an effort to improve the quality of school meals in Oakland by creating a modern facility equipped to prepare thousands of nutritious meals every day. It will be located at the Marcus Foster school site in West Oakland, which formerly housed the Marcus Foster Middle School and later offices for the Programs for Exceptional Children. In addition to being better-equipped to serve fresher and healthier foods for students, the new site will offer educational programs and even a farm for students to help grow the food that may one day end up on their plates.

Refugees reflect on past lives and new beginnings

Interactive Map: follow Jeremías’ journey as an unaccompanied minor, from his neighborhood in El Salvador, to resettlement in Oakland, here. In the shadow of the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris and the ongoing strife in Syria, America’s role in handling the refugee crisis has been catapulted to the forefront of political debates. Discussions about whether the United States would accept Syrian refugees began after governors from over 30 states said they would not welcome them within their borders. In…

LGBT glossary bridges linguistic gap across cultures

Asian LGBTQ people often do not know certain words regarding sex and sexuality in their native language—or their language may not even have a certain word—which can affect the way they communicate with their doctor. It is also a challenge for medical providers, who need to find the most culturally appropriate terms to use for an individual patient.