Migrant Footsteps

60 MIN / BEGINS AT EL PUEBLO DE LOS ANGELES HISTORICAL MONUMENT

Take a walk down bustling Olvera Street, “a Mexican Street of Yesterday in a City of Today,” and uncover the story of millions of Mexican Americans who were coerced into leaving Los Angeles in the 1930s and how this still resonates today.

45 MIN / BEGINS AT STUART HALL HIGH SCHOOL, 1715 OCTAVIA STREET

It’s 1945, and Japanese American families, who have just endured 3 years of incarceration as “enemy aliens,” are returning to San Francisco. In their absence, the neighborhood has transformed into the “Harlem of the West.” Can this new place feel like home again?

55 MIN / BEGINS AT TWIN PEAKS TAVERN, 401 CASTRO STREET

In the 1950s, Eureka Valley was a sleepy Irish Catholic enclave. Then an era of gay migration transformed this neighborhood into a queer homeland: a place with a global queer identity.

65 MIN / BEGINS OPPOSITE OLD CHINESE TELEPHONE EXCHANGE AT 754 WASHINGTON STREET

When a disaster destroys Chinatown in 1906, San Francisco elites see an opportunity to erase a hated neighborhood for good. But its residents have other ideas. This is the story of how one Chinese-American businessman helped reinvent the idea of “Chinatown” to save his community.

55 MIN / BEGINS AT 25TH STREET AND BALMY ALLEY

Go behind the cup and trace a century-long coffee trade between San Francisco and El Salvador that brought tens of thousands of refugees to the Mission in the 1980s, sparking the Sanctuary City Movement.