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Rockridge is different from the East Side of Oakland which is where I stay at. It is different because there is mostly Caucasians. It's also different because there are more shops that you can go visit. If you walk down College st it turns into Broadway st and there you find a Wendy's restaurant and farther down you find a Safeway. Two more blocks down and you will find Oakland Tech High School. A friend and I were lost, we didn't know where we were at until we found a Starbucks Coffee. We looked down and we saw a school, we didn't go down there but we waited a few minutes and teenagers started to go out for lunch. Since Oak Tech is the only shool that's farther away from the others we knew it was it. Something that I didn't like about Rockridge is that when we walked up to interview people, my friend was walking infront of all of us and I was behind him and two other friends behind me. Welll a man had gotten out of a store and he was just standing there and when my friend started walking towards him the man started to walk away and kept looking back to him. When we passed the store he had come out of, the lady behind the counter started to follow my friend with her eyes. when I saw that I called my friend's name so we could turn back. When the man saw that I called him he started walking back towards the store. I think that they were thinking that my friend was going to robb him or something. Just because he was wearing his jeans down low, a long white tee, a beanie, and his black hoodie around his neck. That's what I didn't like that they were judging him without even knowing him. Someting that I did like about Rockridge is that the streets are cleaner than in the East Side of Oakland.
Something I like 'bout Oakland is that most of my family is here and well the main reason is because I've lived here my whole life. Yeah I stayed in them 40's for 12 years then my parents decided that it was starting to get to violent there for my little brother to live there so he made us move to the 50's. I lived in the 50's for about 2 years and my mom didn't feel save there. We did know people 'round there and they were nice but it turned out to be more violent there then it was in them 40's. So guess what? We moved back to the 40's. I'm happier there because there are more stores closer to there and it's been where I've been almost all my life so I want to stay there. When we moved back we had to be really careful because there was more violence. Now there is not as much Violence around here and we can walk around the streets without worrying about getting shot.
Before we went to Chinatown I thought it was going to be easier to interview the people there because all the asian people that I know and that are asian are really nice. It didn't change when we arrived there. The thing that made it hard to go up to people is that we would mostly see old people. One of our group members told us that mostly old people don't speak English so we didn't even try asking them. Something that I noticed different from Chinatown and the Fruitvale is that in Chinatown there are alot more shops that sell cultural stuff. They sell those pretty dresses called Kimonos. Something that surprised me about chinatown is that there was a lot of people walking up and down the streets. Something similar that I noticed between Chinatown and the Fruitvale is that the streets are dirty they have gum on them and they were also cracked. Another similarity between them two is that there is a lot of tagging on the walls, on the streets and on the windows of some old buildings. Another similarity that i saw is that when you are with your own race you feel more comfortable to be in that place because you can communicate in their language or even talk about the things that you feel you can talk about. For example when we went to the Fruitvale I felt more comfortable to be there because I could communicate better with the people, but yesterday that we were in Chinatown I had a difficult time trying to talk to the people that were there.
It was very different having to interview people in Oakland than in Walnut Creek. In Walnut Creek most of the people kept telling us no or that they were in a hurry, here in Fruitvale most people let us interview them. I think it has to do with where we come from because since we are from the same community we can talk more about what goes on around here and in Walnut Creek we didn't know anything bout them and they didn't know anything about us so that made it harder for us. I also think it has to do with the camera and the voice recorder. When we went to Walnut Creek most people would say "no" once they seen the camera. In Fruitvale they said yes because we were just recording their voice. For me it was easier to interview people in Fruitvale because we fit in and everyone knows what happens around here. Something new that I learned while i was interviewing the people in Fruitvale is that most people said that they have seen a lot of violence happening and that no matter what happens they would still like to stay living here. Some things that i like about Fruitvale is that there are a lot of different shops around there. You see a liquor store, the bart station, a highschool, dentists and some dress shops where a lot of young ladies go buy their dress for their Quinceañera. Some things that i don't like about Fruitvale is that a lot of people got robbed there and they also get beat up. Another thing that i don't like about Fruitvale is that when somenoe sees another person getting hit they don't do anything to try to stop it they just walk away like it's no big deal. The biggest thing that i don't like about Fruitvale is that the police has been standing there and thiefs be doing things right infront of them and they don't do anything about it. Something that I learned about my topic(economics) while we were interviewing people in Fruitvale is that the prices are cheaper than in Walnut Creek. In Fruitvale we saw a dress for $29.99 and in Walnut Creek we didn't see any dress shops at all.
