When you don’t know the “other,” it’s easy to stereotype. If you want to learn about another culture, said Oscar Peñaranda, Filipino educator, author, and activist, “you need to read their literature, look at their artists.” Education, learning about others, enlarges your world and challenges your biases, and by education he refers to much more ...
You may not be able to see it, but even covered by a Covid mask, Bobby Thomas’s smile lights up the meat counter he presides over at Andronico’s Market. Day in and day out, the 6-foot-3-inch butcher is there with a kind word and helpful suggestions for his customers at the Inner Sunset store. Barry ...
I met 73-year-old Cass Brayton when our virtual group, Drama with Friends, had the pleasure of reading three of his short plays last month. Brayton’s plays have been performed by local amateur and professional theater groups around the city. His most recent, “The Boy Who Didn’t Listen to His Mother,” was included in the 2008 ...
In 2020, when Kim Shuck was selected the San Francisco Poet Laureate, the San Francisco Public Library wanted to publish a poem of hers every day during her tenure. Shuck proposed they use the library’s website instead to give voice to lesser-known Bay Area poets. Calls to former poet laureates and poetry instructors brought in ...
Growing up in what she describes as “a not very supportive family,” Lynne Painter, now 59, turned to her friends’ parents for support. “Older people mentored me throughout my life,” she said. “I tend to hang out with them.” When she moved to San Francisco in her mid-20s, it was a friend of a friend, ...
When her two older sisters left home, 15-year-old Brenda Washington began caring for her two younger brothers, babysitting nieces and nephews and cooking for the family. And the standards were high; things had to be done just right. “My dad was military. We were saluting kids. The nickel had to bounce off the bed.” Mostly, ...
