- Playing
- Witness to History: Richmond’s boxcar village
- From
- KALW
The Bay Area has historically been a population magnet, but few have arrived here to find that their new homes would be train boxcars – still on the tracks – in Richmond, California. Yet this happened just decades ago, beginning in the late 1920s.
Perhaps equally as odd: The new inhabitants of these boxcar villages moved here from the American Southwest, where they had lived for generations.
This is one of the stories included in a current exhibit at the Bancroft Library Gallery at UC Berkeley, called “California Crossings: Stories of Migration, Relocation and New Encounters.”
KALW’s Holly Kernan sat down with Sam Redman of the library’s Regional Oral History Office to find out more.
More from KALW
Anna Halprin and the Planetary Dance
(00:08:42)
From: KALW
Anna Halprin has influenced generations of dancers and artists with her unique integration of dance and healing work, as well as her use of performance to explore social ...
Could bail reform bail out California’s overcrowded jails?
(00:06:33)
From: KALW
Legally, bail has only one purpose: to guarantee that people show up for their court dates. Bail amounts are set by panels of judges in each county and they vary widely. ...
Decoding the mysteries of Bay Area traffic
(00:06:52)
From: KALW
If you added up all of the time that all of us spend stuck in Bay Area traffic, it would average out to about 40 million hours a year. It doesn’t take much to slow down ...
Bobby Hutcherson: Master of the vibes
(00:14:07)
From: KALW
For nearly 50 years now, a jazz artist who now resides in Northern California has enjoyed a career as one of the great performers on the vibraphone, commonly called the ...
Potential cuts to Cal Grants trigger protest
(00:06:00)
From: KALW
If Governor Jerry Brown’s tax reform plan passes this November, CSU admissions may not suffer cuts, but state financial aid is still in danger. Governor Brown has suggested a ...
Undocumented students wait for DREAM Act to become a reality
(00:06:35)
From: KALW
AB540 is a state law that enables undocumented students who have attended California high schools for three or more years to pay in-state tuition at a public college or ...
San Francisco fights to keep the ocean at bay
(00:07:14)
From: KALW
The only thing more powerful than human will is Mother Nature. At San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, the two forces have done battle for years over wave erosion, but only the city ...
BART police meet the Citizen Review Board
(00:08:08)
From: KALW
A civilian oversight board is now responsible for hearing a wide range of alleged BART police misconduct at their meetings every month. With the help of a new, independent ...
The cost of recycling scavengers
(00:04:46)
From: KALW
San Francisco is considered a national leader in pro-environmental policy, advocacy, and education. And while the City is a pioneer in recycling it may be getting tougher on ...
Bowling alley acts like community center in Daly City
(00:07:08)
From: KALW
The neighborhood of Westborough straddles the border between Daly City and South San Francisco. It’s a mostly residential area, with quiet sloping streets full of brown and ...
Related Pieces
Broadcast History
KALW 91.7FM:
October 24, 2011
Transcript
SAM REDMAN: In the late 1860s of course the Transcontinental was finally completed. But from there, these networks sort of continued on and continued building, and the Santa Fe Railroad in the early 1920s wanted to pass through to pueblo villages, in particular the Laguna Pueblo and the Acoma Pueblo…
HOLLY KERNAN: These are Native American villages?
REDMAN: Yes, that’s right. And in order to do that, they had to reach a verbal agreement with some of the tribal elders, that in exchange for the right to build the rail line through their villages, that they would be offered jobs working for the railroad. And the terminus for the rail line was in Richmond, California.
KERNAN: So what happened? Why did they live in boxcars?
REDMAN: The idea was that they’d stay on these temporary boxcars for a short period of time and then eventually tract housing would be built for them near the same sit...
Read the full transcript
Related Website
