For my first running of the Oakland Marathon, March 2011…
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DEAR OAKLAND, my city, Oakland,
We have a date soon, we’re meeting for the Marathon, and I can’t wait to see you.
That day I’ll be so proud of you, so proud to be seen with you.
That day I’ll be so glad I’ve known you my whole life.
My Oakland, you are beautiful, your redwood forested hills, your shimmering lake, your sunset view of one of the world’s great harbors and the ocean beyond.
You are beautiful, your perfect Mediterranean climate—you spoil me with the very best weather in the nation.
You are beautiful, your peoples from all over the world. Here, no one has ever even once asked me where I am from. And how could I be from anywhere but you?
You are beautiful, my Oakland, you and your friends: Tacoma, Newark, Baltimore, Long Beach, and every other fine city that has to put up with some noisy, self-important neighbor.
My Oakland, we spend every day together, but the Marathon will be our special date.
Every street, every block will be filled with your story and our story.
We’ll pass by Bruce Lee’s martial arts studio, and Clint Eastwood’s high school. We’ll pass near where Jessica Mitford wrote for the living and the dead, and where Julia Morgan built for the ages. We’ll pass by where Calvin Simmons raised his conductor’s baton and where the Black Panthers raised their fists.
We’ll pass by the Peralta Hacienda and the Native American Health Center. We’ll pass by firestorm houses and the Cypress Structure earthquake memorial.
We’ll pass by so many beautiful houses of faith: from the Cathedral of Christ the Light to Temple Sinai, from Ascension Orthodox to my church family at New Hope Covenant.
My Oakland, I know it has not all been good. Have we made up yet for the European empires that imagined claims to you, and the American squatters who sold you off?
Yet how can I begrudge them for starting what became a destination of hope and opportunity for my ancestors?
And you did not waste your gifts. You gave the world the University of California, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Jack La Lane and the modern health club; the passenger bus; the window squeegee; Rocky Road Ice Cream, the popsicle, fantasy football, scraper bikes, and the Wave.
And now I teach my kids to say proudly, “I’m from Oakland!” My city, Oakland, I can’t wait to spend that day with you. From the starting line to the finish line, you will be mine, and I will be yours.
Russell Yee 