Greeting the Year of the Tiger in Oakland's Chinatown

Two young men struggle into a dragon costume for a Chinese New Year celebration in Oakland's Chinatown. Photo by Tashina Manyak.

Neon signs in windows offer psychic crystal ball readings by master fortune-tellers as I walk down Franklin Street. Languages foreign to me bombard my senses, as a busy worker carries flattened cardboard boxes across an elaborate crosswalk, imprinted with red and yellow patterns of flowers.

It’s Saturday afternoon and Oakland’s Chinatown is bustling in the brisk February sun. The neighborhood's unique cultural blend saturates the scenery, as citizens of white, black and Hispanic decent intermingle with the strong Pan-Asian American presence in Oakland.

A directory posted on a streetlight provides fragments of the area’s rich social history as it guides visitors to Asian Heath Services and the Asian Resource Center. The two locations are service centers for the Pan-Asian community, and reveal the strength and solidarity of the distinctive cultural enclave.

Asian Health Services at the corner of Franklin and Webster provides medical care to low-income families in eight different languages. The Asian Resource Center opened in 1984, after activists worked to turn a local building into a locus of advocacy groups for Asian Americans and new immigrants. Today it houses many groups supporting the community, including immigration rights groups and legal counsel.

As I pass a series of local restaurants and markets, the deafening ruckus of firecrackers steals the attention of everyone on the street. Outside of two restaurants on opposite sides of the street, huge dancing dragons are undulating to the beat of drums. The one on my side of the street is fire-red, and a group is struggling to situate the impressive head on one of the two young men inside the costume.

Noting my fascination, a woman turns to explain to me that the celebration of Chinese New Year will continue into March. On the other side of the street, an equally extraordinary white dragon dances right into a crowded restaurant. I follow it, watching the faces of the people enjoying their lunches light up, as its willowy white body dances close to a laughing cashier.

Tashina Manyak is a student in the Public Interest Reporting Program at Mills College in Oakland. This article is part of an ongoing series exploring Oakland's Chinatown.