From the late 1800s to the mid 1910s, European immigrants settled by the thousands in West Oakland, California. \u00a0The west quadrant of this city lies at the eastern end of the San Francisco Bay. \u00a0It offers temperate climate, protected from the coastal fog by the large expanse of water between San Francisco and its eastern sister cities.<\/p>\n
These immigrants created an ethnic-rich ghetto. \u00a0Families opened businesses in store front buildings and lived on the second floor, above. \u00a0Bakeries, restaurants and small shops lined the streets that were shaded by groves of oak trees. \u00a0There was a small movie theatre in the center. \u00a0Street traffic consisted of ice wagons, bakery wagons, milk wagons.\u00a0 Children played in the streets or in vacant lots. \u00a0Two public grammar schools diligently provided education in the three R’s in English to those children who did not work in their father\u2019s business.\u00a0 The children spoke their immigrant parents’ language at home and English everywhere else. \u00a0By the time WWII began, most of these immigrant families would move out of West Oakland as their businesses expanded and their families grew.<\/p>\n
A young, newly-married couple from Kythera, Greece, settled in West Oakland in 1903. \u00a0They began the history of the Alfieris family in America. \u00a0They are survived by six generations, most of whom still live in the San Francisco Bay Area.<\/p>\n
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From the late 1800s to the mid 1910s, European immigrants settled by the thousands in West Oakland, California. \u00a0The west quadrant of this city lies at the eastern end of the San Francisco Bay. \u00a0It offers temperate climate, protected from the coastal fog by the large expanse of water between San Francisco and its eastern … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["entry","page","publish","author-kstathis","post-374"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/374\/revisions\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfiers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}