It’s probably time for me to talk a bit about how this blog came to exist. I was chatting with neighbors, and one of them told me of her bewilderment about how divisive the discourse about the city had become. “Looking around,” she said, “All I can think is how nice a place El Cerrito is to live.”
It’s a sentiment that stuck with me. Before this year, I didn’t think too much about El Cerrito as a place with a particularly strong identity. We don’t have a downtown, we don’t have a great many cultural centers or standout events. I obviously liked living here, given we decided to buy our first house after renting here for eight-ish years, but I liked it as a part of the broader East Bay, as a place well-connected to other places. My husband had spent more time digging into our actual town history; he liked to talk about how Don Víctor Castro used to be buried in the Plaza (before it was the Plaza), or how the city used to be called Rust before it incorporated, and how it had kind of a sin city reputation as the location with all the brothels, bars, and liquor stores. Or something like that. I was never a history buff.
As I started meeting with more neighbors in person, though, my feelings have shifted. I’ve gotten way more involved in a lot of local activities; I’ve attended several events where I got to meet neighbors and learn more about folks who live here. I joined a produce buyer’s club that supports local farmers of color. I attended a recent crop swap to donate surplus avocados and spicy peppers from my garden. One neighbor shared a different bit of El Cerrito history that I was kind of astonished to learn about. Apparently, during WWII, when Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps, something unusual happened in El Cerrito. There were a large number of nurseries here owned by Japanese-American families, and somehow most of those businesses were saved, safeguarded from seizure for those families to return to, through the support of neighbors and community institutions:
“While many of those interned lost their homes and businesses, the growers in El Cerrito and Richmond fared better. Although many of their greenhouses had been smashed and razed, others found their properties had been tended and protected by neighbors. Local growers who owned their land retained it through the efforts of Mechanics Bank. Only one nursery, owned by the Hoshi family, was lost.” – El Cerrito Historical Society
I think about that nugget of history a lot. What was different about El Cerrito (and Richmond) that enabled that to happen? Was it just coincidence that it happened here, or does it reflect something unique, perhaps, situated in the town’s character?
It’s ironic that it took a wretched cultural conflict over a library to get me to engage in this way, but as events have transpired, I’m coming to truly appreciate this town more and more. It’s not that we don’t have problems, but I’ve begun contrasting our problems with those of our neighboring towns, and… well, I guess I just still feel lucky to live here. (Seriously: have you seen the pavement quality in Berkeley? Or gotten embroiled in one of their many absurd political battles? I’m fond of Berkeley, but I find myself agreeing with one of our council candidates: El Cerrito seems relatively well run by contrast with our neighbors.) I’ve met so many neighbors over the past couple of months, and almost to a fault, everyone has been incredibly nice. I’ve met with several city council members, and my sense of my own empowerment in government has gone way up. We have access to our leadership: Each time I’ve emailed the city, I’ve gotten a prompt response; even when my personal wishes aren’t the city’s priority, I feel like I’m being offered opportunity after opportunity to engage. It’s on me that I didn’t do this before. It slowly dawned on me, as I started to untangle the threads of El Cerrito’s current political moment, that others might be interested in the story as well, if they had a place to start.
This blog’s title is a tongue-in-cheek homage to another local blog, Livable El Cerrito, written by another longtime El Cerrito resident, Betsy Bashor. Betsy takes a more journalistic framing to her work, although she does have her own opinions and lets them color her writing from time to time. I won’t comment more on that; suffice to say I don’t necessarily agree with all her opinions, but I’m glad she (and Betty Buginas of the El Cerrito Wire, another citizen-journalism project) have made an effort to bring a little water to El Cerrito’s news desert. One time when I mentioned Betsy’s blog to a friend, they chuckled and said, “Livable? Kind of a low bar, if you ask me.” Well, I can’t resist a bit of good wordplay—sharp eyes might have noticed a few jokes here and there—and so, Lovable was born, shortly followed by its sister site, Laughable El Cerrito (not my project, but I’m looking forward to seeing what that site comes up with.)
I don’t intend to poke fun at Betsy; she’s written good stuff about some of the very same things I’m commenting on (see, for instance, this post about the El Cerrito Historical Society where she mentions one of the businesses saved in WWII, for instance). I’m truly glad we have a flourishing blogosphere and engaged residents. At the heart, Lovable El Cerrito really is just a love letter to the city.