Oakland is such a beautiful city, full of beautiful people. It gets stigmatized for being seedy and violent but there's so much more to this city then what it's portrayed as in the media. I never lived in Oakland but something about the town makes me feel at home. The people and energy of Oakland is familiar, reminding me of Vallejo in a way. So many great minds, movements, artists, and musicians come from this city. When Miles grows up, he'll have many childhood memories of playing in Oakland and exploring. This weekend, we went to the annual Estria Graffiti Battle, held at Deframery park, better known as Bobby Hutton park, where during the civil rights movement, the Black Panther Party use to congregate, rally, and provide social programs. Estria organizes this battle, full of heavy hitters, coming from different parts of the world. Last year was dope because Miles' ninong Paulskeee threw Mighty 4 Bay Area outdoors, alongside the battle, skate competition, and Life is Living festival.
Miles loves graffiti. He has his own graff style, which looks more like scribbles but understands how characters look like they are moving in graffiti. He was intrigued by the different writers and the different pictures they made, using the word: HEAL.
It was good for Miles to see dope women writers too!
He pays a lot of attention to detail, noticing things in some of the pictures that I didn't pick up. He got excited when he spotted these cat tails, something he always sees by papo's and nanay's house cause they live surrounded by wetlands.
He also hung around this new ground hog friend for a bit, watching him pop up out of his tunnel every now and then...
I could totally see us living in Oakland one day.
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