Alameda: Diversity

By Alejandra, Laura and Brian

Our topic was diversity, so on our trip to Alameda we had to see if it was diverse or not. We thought that Alameda was diverse because we saw different races. When the high school students went out to lunch, we saw a mixture in races, maybe there was a few more white people then any other race but there were still a lot of African Americans and Latinos. Alameda is more diverse then any other place we went on field trips to. It would either be more of one race or less of another race, but Alameda seemed pretty balanced when it came to diversity.

In Alameda we saw trash, but not that much like in Oakland. We also saw a park we past by, but it wasn't like the one in Oakland: the park in Alameda didn't have any swings or a playground for kids to play, all it had was just benchs, trees and grass. Another thing that we saw was that the beach was kind of dirty, not like the beach at Point Reyes or Half Moon Bay. It's okay, but not great. One thing that surprised us was that there were a lot of kids our age passing by us and smoking. Hardly any kids at our school smoke, so it was weird to see so many teenagers smoking.

We interviewed this guy who worked in a bookstore. He was very friendly and good-looking (ha, ha!). He was white, in his 20s, and he let us use the video camera record him, which a lot of people don’t like; they prefer just the audio recorder. He told us that he thinks Alameda is a very diverse place and that he didn’t really see a specific race more than another, he said there was a pretty even mix of all races put together. He had recently moved to Alameda about 2 years ago from Oakland. He said that he liked Oakland and that it was ok, but he definitely mentioned the crime rates right away, saying that he came to Alameda to feel more safe. He also shared with us that he had been mugged twice, so that was a big part of the reason why he decided to move to Alameda. He said that the reason why he loved living in Alameda so much was because it’s a safe place where he doesn’t have to worry about getting mugged or scared that something dangerous can happen to him. He feels so safe there that he isn’t afraid to walk down the streets at 2am,which is something that we think most people would agree isn’t very safe to do in Oakland! He also loves it there because he feels a sense of community, and everyone is friendly.