This week I’ve spent some time exploring two new hacker/maker spaces in East Oakland and SF. I earnestly hope understand more about the racial dynamics in the tech industry, since I am very aware of the tech backlash in the Bay Area, and especially in the SF. I also want to find a new community and other coders who cares about issues of social justices.
Monday night 7:30pm: LOL Makerspace in East Oakland
LOL stands for Liberating Ourselves Locally, a queer-people-of-color socially conscious community space. I got a chance to meet Jen-Mei, the facilitator there and she gave me a tour of their industrial-size building in the edgier side of Oakland, close to International and 23rd.
</figure>
I dig the vibe and the people there since everybody was down to earth and was really supportive to n00b coders. LOL hosts many events ranging from free mac/repair workshops, to sustainibility+tech workshops, biofood hacking (making your own kimchi and kombucha) workshops, and of course, Monday hack nights and Friday make-everything nights.
Check them out here.
Tuesday night 7:00–9:00pm: Railsschool Ruby Class at Noisebridge Hackerspace, the Mission, SF
</figure>
I don’t know too much about these guys at the Rails School. But the deal is this: they need a space to teach a free Ruby and Rails class, and of course Noisebridge has always been very supportive of providing its space for instructors and outside groups to teach coding/tech-related workshops.
Content-wise, it was a great complement to Phase 0 DBC course work. Gabe was very helpful and brought some clarity to my confusions about sort! and sort method. However, it was a “bro-fulfilling” experience (read: brogrammers + fulfilling), as one of only three women there in a room. I believe it is more of an outreaching issue than anything else. I wish more people know about the space outside of NB. (The class is pretty low key. I got the tip from a friend because she’s in charge of the listserv and mailing list at NB). I’ll definitely drop by more often for their weekly workshops.
After visiting the two spaces, I felt really pensive. Sometimes I live inside my own bubble and forget that the tech industry, by large is very exclusive in terms of race, gender, sexuality (of course there are other kinds exclusion, but these two seems most pertinent at the moment).
I worry because I don’t know how to fit between two worlds. I worry that majority of Asian Americans in the tech industry, might not be socially conscious of issues of race, gender, and sexuality. I worry about perpetuating the stereotype of the Asian Model Minority. Read: smart, Asian, nerdy, high income, perpetual foreigner, “you are taking our tech jobs”. Translation: You are doing too well. You do not need help. and low income, high crime rates, and other social issues within the segment of the AA communities = nonexistent. So, there, now, go. Stop complaining.
This is the Bay Area but the tech industry is not cognizant of the economic and racial struggles of its citizens. The soil of California is seeped with the sweat and labors of people of color. From its earliest settlers, the Yelamu Native Americans in what is now San Francisco, to the Chinese railroad workers, the Japanese Filipino and Chicano farm workers, to Black Panthers of Oakland. The beginning of the Ethnic Studies movement, the Third World Liberation front-all started here.
So when “Die Techie Scum” appears on sidewalks, light poles, and t-shirts of local San Franciscans, most of whom are people of color and the working class, something is seriously wrong.
</figure>
I have to think this about this long and hard. It is because the Bay Area is my home. To see so much economic potential here for everybody to prosper, but only a few are entitled to it, is deeply troubling…
Now, with another another label to my identity as a “technie,” I need to go and do a bit of soul searching.