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The Mission...The Bay Area’s New Bohemia
Take a visit with us to San Francisco's Mission District for some music, food and ethnic ambiance.
by Susan Perry
Foghorns, cable cars, endless collections of grand victorian homes, spectacular panoramas, watery vistas, and the ever-verdant Golden Gate park where bicyclists and rollerbladers reign, all make for the endless and effortless indulgence of any pleasure seeker. Small as it is (Pop.768,000) San Francisco, with its rare combination of anachronistic charm and progressive diversity has the well-founded reputation for being one of the most exciting cities in the world.
The City by the Bay, famed first and foremost for its dazzling beauty, offers an abundance of hedonistic delights, including an array of culinary quenchers as it boasts more restaurants per capita than any other metropolis in the U. S. Renowned for its ethnic food, San Francisco opened the first Chinese and Japanese restaurants in the West. Fueled by the desire for experimentation, local chefs rebelled against conventional notions, for example, that French food belonged only in French restaurants or Thai only in Thai restaurants. As a result, the blending of international ingredients, a mish-mash of flavors, along with a distinctly Western touch, gave birth to the term “California Cuisine.”
San Francisco is equally illustrious for its music scene. While traditional forms of music such as opera and symphony are mainstays of the city’s history, and while a devoted contingent of Dead Heads have carved out a permanent roost in the Haight district, contemporary music in San Francisco has taken a refreshing turn. Ranging from the countless Alternative Rock venues to Salsa clubs and Swing clubs to the avante garde Jazz Clubs which are especially prodigious in number, San Francisco is the perfect stomping ground for those enthusiasts eager for musical entertainment that lasts long into the early morning hours.
These days, the vast majority of San Franciscans are middle-class, ranging from young professionals steeped in the high-growth industries of computer technology and multimedia to the immigrants who run neighborhood businesses. San Franciscans, both the wealthy and the indigent, tend to be very aware of their stake in their city.
San Francisco’s residents form a demographic bouillabaisse. Each neighborhood has its own particular identity and yet each overlaps into neighboring communities so that people are likely to mix and mingle in a day-to-day flow of activities.
Although descendants of early Italian, German and Irish families are still found in cozy enclaves, their numbers have been greatly reduced over the past few decades by the temptations of suburbia, with its often cheaper and roomier homes. Their place has been filled by an influx of Asian and Hispanic people, in recent years many of them Filipinos, the fastest growing minority. These are the people who, among others, make up the many districts that comprise San Francisco. According to the 1995 census, 53 percent of the city’s populace is white, 29 percent Asian (more than half of which are Chinese), 11 percent black, and 7 percent Hispanic.
But it is the Mission, considered by some the least tourist-worthy district of the city, that is indeed one of the most vibrant elements of San Francisco’s culture. The Mission is San Francisco's Hispanic center, with a large population of Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Bolivians, and Colombians as well as a fair share of non-Latinos, including Samoans, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Native Americans.
The Mission, an almost entirely - and for San Francisco, uncharacteristically - fog-free area, is fast becoming the Bay Area’s new bohemia. The ubiquitous cafes are stock full of artists and writers engaging in their crafts. Still, the streets of the Mission, true to its nature, are often blasting with Mariachi music from the bars and from cars where cholos cruise in low-riders.
On any given block you are certain to find a congested assortment of Brazilian taquerias, Cuban delis, Salvadoran restaurants, and Puerto Rican bakeries. Gold tinsel and Christmas lights are the chosen adornments all year round appropriate to the Mission’s street culture pursuit of leisure and merrymaking. Probably every country in Latin America has lent its influence to the culture of the Mission, as distinctions between cultures tend to blur: you can order pupusas, a popular deep-fried Salvadoran tortas, in most Mexican restaurants, and no one seems to know the difference.
The neighborhood’s main artery, Mission Street, is replete with commercial discount shops, poolrooms, pawn brokers, bars, diners, barber shops, meat and produce stands, and a myriad of low-budget restaurants. Walking through the Mission, it’s impossible not to notice that it is the residents who infuse this community with its lifeblood. The customs of dress, the languages and dialects spoken, the manner of behavior, all vary from one moment to the next and seem to spill over into one rich, simmering stew.
The annual Carnaval parade, an off-shoot of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnaval, an event so wild it sparked admonitions from the Vatican, winds its way through the Mission district every May to a crowd of some 200,000 people. Considered the very soul and spirit of Mission life, Carnaval features thousands of dancers and musicians bedecked in sequins and feathers (often only barely), local school children perched atop fanciful theme-based floats moving to the heated sounds of Samba, Puerto Rican Salsa, Mariachi Dixieland, and Caribbean Steel bands while Native American warrior dancers keep the festive beat.
Above all, the ties that bind the Mission are ethnic. The Latino’s identification with la raza (the race or the people) is reflected in the many colorful murals spread throughout the streets. 24th Street alone has more than forty murals. But it is Balmy Alley with the largest concentration of political wall paintings depicting Latino/Chicano struggle and celebration that has gained international recognition as one of the largest open-air galleries in the world.
Most visitors opt for San Francisco’s sure-hits: North Beach, a thriving sensorial Little Italy with a lingering history of Beat Poet literary figures and strip joints, or Union Square with its multitudes of high-end shops, where one can board a Rice-a-Roni advertised cable car to view the stunning sights from Nob Hill, or Chinatown, a dense twenty-four square block enclave with aromatic open markets, glitzy emporiums and herbalist shops packed with exotic roots and spices. Then there is the SoMa district, the mecca of trend-setting bars and nightclubs, the dynamic Castro district, often referred to as the gay capital of the world, or Fisherman’s Wharf for good food, gallery hopping and a full blown tourist experience.
Whatever your inclinations might be, San Francisco is sure to work its way into your dreams. As William Saroyan said, “No city invites the heart to come to life as San Francisco does. Arrival in San Francisco is an experience in living.”
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