We asked Zaira Clemmons, a generous and loving human who drives many Bay View Hunters Point space fellowship initiatives as a community organizer, educator, illustrator, social activist, and craftier of YCD flow internship.

Interview conducted by Stetson Hines

What city did you grow up in?

San Francisco CA,

How long have you lived here?

I grew up in San Francisco my whole life. I lived on Treasure Island and then moved to the Bay View Hunters Point district until I moved away for college.

Can you tell me what it was like growing up being a minority in San Francisco? 

Growing up in San Francisco as a minority back then is different from now. When I was growing up in San Francisco,o I didn’t think about being a minority.y I was in very diverse places like going to school,l there were different minorities. It wasn’t until I went to middle school I went to Apt, which was predominantly white te, and I found myself having to be a certain type of black person trying to find themselves.

What neighborhood did you grow up in? 

I grew up in Bay View Hunters Point.t I grew up on Thomas street, and it gave me some grit. There were always kids riding bikes around growing up. Going to the corner store and going to Martin Luther King jr pool. It was very standard Bay View things, but it was so fun when I look back on it now. There were some things I didn’t understand. My mom was a single mom. She was making ends meet how she could. Those aren’t things you think about as a kid. That was the norm. It wasn’t like my other friends, and their families weren’t struggling necessarily either. It was the norm, so I never thought or questioned why I could only get new shoes during back-to-school time.

How was it growing up in San Francisco? 

There were many black kids in my neighborhood, especially going to school right down the street from my house. Going to a school like Thurgood Marshall, most African American and Polynesian students knew each other from back in the day. So coming in on the dynamic is a little bit different, but yeah,there were many black people, families in my neighborhood.

How was the era you grew up in San Francisco? 

The era I grew up in in San Francisco was a lot of fun. I grew up in an era when many people didn’t have a phone until I got to middle school. I remember vividly going outside in the summer without telephones, not reaching people, and not having internet, so growing up in that era was an extraordinary time. Playing double dutch in the street and having to get out the street when cars rolled past was an extraordinary time. Doing things like hopping on the bus and seeing who we were going to run into, it was still transferred back then.

How do you feel about San Francisco today?

I don’t have that same nostalgia about San Francisco as I did growing up. It is a bit tricky and a little trigger ng, to be honest, when I think about my childhood growing up in San Francisco and its diversity. Even the ignorance,e even though it was still income disparity between white and blacks, and high performing school was nonexistent growing up.

Are your friends still around? 

I’ve been displaced due to gentrification and a lot of my friends. I grew up with in San Francisco have been displaced due to gentrification.