2a San Francisco

San Francisco contains people from every cultural background, every ethnicity, every religious group, and every walk of life. With such a variety of cultural elements San Franciso is a hot spot for artistic expression in the form of music, film, literature, sculpture, dance, and everything in between. San Francisco is always buzzing with activity, always alive and generating new and exciting things. Simply walking down the street proves to be an eye-opening experience. It is a melting pot of cultural expression, practice, and belief thus it is relavent to the study of humanites in that one gains insight into unknown cultures.


The streets of San Francisco are always, no matter the time of day or night, full of interesting characters. During the day they are bustling with people heading of to a multitude of destinations yet during the wee hours of the morning the sidewalk traffic slows to a trickle. The streets are lined with shops, restaurants, coffee houses, hotels, offices, laundramats, and strip clubs. The Mission District is known for the various murals that decorate buildings and fences that depict elements of the eclectic mix of cultures. Haight Street in San Francisco has a great deal of history set in the 1960's. Many movements during this landmark time sprang about or were alive and kicking in the Haight Ashbury scene. Each and every building has history and its own unique character perhaps by means of color, shape, or decor. The old victorian style homes that stretch on and on are similar to one another yet completely different simultaneously. The style, accent peices, decor, and character make each house striking and unique from those around it. The people that thrive in San Francisco come from all walks of life and encompass every possible interest group, political group, religious affiliation, culture, style of dress, eating habits, and any other cultural element possible. The constant hub of cars whizzing by, chatter in the background, music of every style, horns, and the occasional call for a taxi create the backdrop of noise. The only time the city is every quite, though I believe it never truly is as the city never sleeps, is in the early hours of morning, say three a.m. The lights sparkle in every direction once dark falls upon the city, no need for a flashlight if one chooses to roam about. The city lights brighten even the darkest corners and allow life to thrive continuously.

My choice is about living in harmony with those of various and contrasting lifestyles, cultures, and beliefs. Its about accepting others for who they are and not forcing conformity upon anyone simply because they are different. San Francisco is a perfect example of a melting pot living alongside one another.

What led to my choice was personally witnessing the horrors of humanity when tolerance fails to be a factor. I feel that everyone in the world can learn something from the way various cultures and those that practice them blend together, live alongside one another, tolerate others beliefs and practices, and eliminate prejudice. I am strongly against prejudice in any form. For example, I have a homosexual friend who, in my small hometown, was ridiculed, taunted, and tortured for his sexual orientation yet in San Francisco people would look past that and get to know him for who he is as a person without the label.

I learned that during the 1950's the coffeehouse culture was established in San Francsico and has played an important role in the social movements of the 1960's that led San Francisco to recieve a label 'liberal activism'. I would love to know more about the activities of such activist groups that sparked social revolution in our nation forty-some odd years ago.


When Liz thinks of California she thinks of "..diversity, opportunity, and uniqueness." Which, consequently, is pretty much parallel to my thoughts. I feel privileged to not only be born in the United States, but also in California where opportunities are abundant, the people come from all walks of life, a perfect example would be San Francisco, and there is not another place on earth that even compares, nothing remotely like it. This class deals with this world, this country, this state, and the people that inhabit it. Anything relating to the qualities portrayed by the people and relates to the exploration of cultural aspects and how these are expressed by society. It is related to historical and cultural context of not only this country, but more specifically of this state in that from the moment California was inhabited by Native Americans, then pioneers, and continued to recieve a great influx of immigrants from all over the world, it has become a state of diversity and developed into the cultural melting pot that it is today. In fact, it has not halted since the earliest days of its existence in culural exploration, expression, and acceptance.

http://lizhuman7.blogspot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco