Oakland Chinatown: Health and Accessibility

By Miguel, Alejandro, Brian, and Juven

In Chinatown, we looked at how people with disabilities can access the city, and how people stay healthy.

What we learned about Chinatown was that there weren't enough places on the sidewalk for them to walk safely. Some of the sidewalks are hard to get around, there aren't that many ramps, mostly stairs and steps. We saw one may with one leg, and he was struggling to get up on the sidewalk before the crosswalk turned red. We think there should be more handicap rails not only in Chinatown but all over Oakland, because there are a lot of people that really can’t get on the sidewalk. There are also a lot of older people in Chinatown that can't get around easliy because of their canes and walkers.

There were not a lot of places in Chinatown to exercise or do any kind of physical activities, but there was a park where people might walk around. We did see people exercising in one school. We saw old people doing exercises in the park and in the school, doing aerobics and something called Tai Chi.

In Chinatown, we saw a lot of pharmacies and we tried to interview them, but they said no. But they seemed to take sickness seriously because there were a lot of pamphlets and things about staying healthy and people who worked there were answering a lot of questions for the people who walked in. Then, just a few blocks later, there were more pharmacies. They also had natural tea houses and places that sell traditional food so that people can stay healthy in ways that their culture tells them to.

In Chinatown, we also saw a lot of Health Clinics. We saw the Asian Health Center, with a lot of free information for people to take if they needed it. There was also a free clinic where people could go if they didn't have a lot of money. There was also a free clinic for Planned Parenthood and family advice.