The Barbary Coast Mural, Research Paper Example

1. The Yerba Buena Cove is depicted in the mural by the masts of ships that are seen the background of the mural. The cove is depicted as being active and full of life. The mural depicts prostitution, gambling, underground fighting, political conflicts, and social shifts driven by beatnik culture. There is a ship with the writing “hungry” on it, to imply immigrants from Hungry, and the historic cavern Hungry I; but also when I see it, I get a subconscious meaning from it referring to all immigrants coming to the cove hungry for a chance to build a life.
2. Melvin Belli was a well-known Californian lawyer born in 1907. Since Belli was a lawyer, he is one of the men standing with one of them holding a placard with the writing” give women the vote.” His positioning in the mural is as relevant as the fact that he is fighting for a human rights issue. He is positioned high above the other images, depicting underground fighting and gambling. When comparing the images together side by side, the message this delivers is that there is both corruption and a just democratic process at the Cove.
3. The 1934 longshoremen strike is depicted in the right side of the mural. In the mural, the Longshoremen are seen congregating in front of ship listening to a speaker. Cargo is seen in the background, which is important in understanding the cause of the strike, which was unfair cargo water front cargo. It is evident that the Longshoremen were not satisfied with handling huge cargo and receiving meager pay. This is made clear by the number of hands up in unison in the picture.

Bloody Thursdays is significant to the strike because it symbolizes the price the picketers had to pay (Richards 204). On this day July 5, the picketers and police confronted one another, and the striking workers attempted to topple a police car. In the ensuing melee, the police shot into the air, but one of them fired a shotgun into the crowd. The shotgun hit three men, and two of them succumbed to the injuries. The image shows many hats cluttered together, like crabs in a barrel, they are all reaching up to the man on stage who is reaching down. The intensity of this image is very clear in that it shows how important the issue was for the workers, but also how popular the issue was in that all of the workers are cluttered together and all reaching to the stage. Within the historical context, the thought that a police officer would fire shots into that crowd can’t help but make the viewer feel sympathetic towards the victims, as anyone shot in that crowd would have been helpless.

4. Prostitution was a vibrant industry in San Francisco as depicted by the mural. On the left-hand side of the mural, one is able o see the evidence of prostitution, which seems to have a legal and open trade during the period. A man is seen holding a woman provocatively on the stairs of a building while another woman seems to be seeing off a client. When comparing what I learned about prostitution from the class lecture and videos, and the mural, it is evident that prostitution is understated in the mural. From the lectures, and documentaries, it is evident that prostitution was one of the prime industries of Barbary Coast after the discovery of gold in 1849. The demand for prostitutes was so high that newspapers carried publications of ships arriving with prostitutes.

Parlor houses were expensive and exclusive and attracted the city’s political and business elites. The most telling image displaying the popularity of prostitution can be seen in the mural where there is a woman, all dressed up, facing a man at the top of the steps. Within the same image, the same woman is facing a different man at the bottom of the steps. It’d clear that the two men are different men because they have different color suits on, but the suits also imply that they are wealthy. This picture perfectly depicts the popularity of the prostitutions market during the time period and it shows that the clientele were prominent members of the community.

5. Boxing is one the sports that has a historical significance to San Francisco. In the mural, a boxing scene is depicted on the right-hand side showing men with their shirts off bare knuckle boxing, in what appears to be a secret location away from the police. There is clearly a large crowd and they are excited about the match. It is evident from that the sport had a significant following in the city judging by the size of the crowd.

During the gold rush, boxing gains a strong foothold in northern California. By 1180s, San Francisco was a cosmopolitan city of about 200,000 people and was characterized by prostitution, gambling and fighting (Yung 120). Initially, several laws placed a significant limitation on the sport, and boxing matches were only restricted to members-only sports clubs that flourished in the Bay area as the one depicted in the mural. This mural represents the early stages of the boxing industry. The boxing matches attracted thousands of crowds from different parts of the state, who would spend the whole day partying and picnicking. As mentioned earlier, boxing was prohibited in California in 1872, which left the sport in limbo. Fights were staged in open filed, boats and any places away from the police.

6. The Hungry I has historical significance to the city of San Francisco, and it is shown in the mural on the bottom almost to the left-hand side. The founder, Enrico Banducci came to San Francisco from Bakersfield California at the age of 13 to study the violin with the city’s symphony. Enrico bought the hungry I for $800, and it remained an epitome of San Francisco’s performing arts until it was closed in the 1970s.

The Hungry I was described by a columnist as peopled with leftover Bohemian, beatniks, and other leftovers from reality. This description vividly captures the scene in the mural at the Hungry I in the 1950s. The men and women pounding on bongos, and smoking joints with sunglasses in the café, with the bookstore in the background perfectly captures the culture of the time and politics of the day. Personally, I believe the image depicted in the Hungry I characterizes the energy and vibe many people think of when they think of San Francisco. The image emits peace, love, politics, arts, and creativity all in one simple section of the mural. This image, juxtaposed with the rest of the images in the mural, demonstrate how diverse the sociopolitical climate was at the time. Several illustrious careers were launched out of Hungry I and this image depicts the community like atmosphere that made it possible for artists like Barbara Streisand to flourish today. During its height, the Hungry I became synonymous with extreme political satire and the birthplace of the folk boom that swept the country from the mid-1950s.

7. Jose Julio Sarria was a political activist from San Francisco and is well known for acting as drag queen at black cat bar in San Francisco. A trained teacher, Sarria realized that he could not achieve his dream because of charges on moral grounds, and this led him to start performing drag at the black cat. For his role in championing the right of gay and homosexual couples, a section of 16th street in San Francisco was renamed after him in his honor. He was also the first gay candidate to stand for public office when he contested for the post in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

The Black Cat Café, which was located on Montgomery Street, became famous for gay drag extravaganza starring José SARRIA. He starred as Madame Butterfly to sermonize homosexual rights and he led the sing-along of “God Save the Nelly Queens….” (Beemyn 167). Following its closure in 1963, the café had played a significant role in breaking the obstacles the prevented gay bars openly from operating liberally. The Black Cat is also credited with establishing a vital cultural precedent for the cultural community. As the gay community held street parties, feasts, private and public bars, and sex clubs, it enhanced the sociability and expression of the gay community in the city and beyond.

8. It is true that the Chinatown experience in the mural is depicted in a neutral light compared to the real experience of the Chinese during the period. The experience of the Chinese in the mural is only shown once in the mural on the left-hand side corner. The first Chinese in San Francisco were two men and a woman aboard the American vessel the Eagle (Yung 82). The primary conflict that spawned out of the Chinese contribution to San Francisco stemmed from the way they impacted the labor market through hard work. This imagery is depicted in the mural by sowing one Chinese man working hard carrying heavy herbs and another Chinese man hiding in the shadows. I think this depicts that idea of San Francisco and other places like it developing into metropolitan areas on the backs of the Chinese. This theme is very similar to that used in the Heathen Chinee.

Despite this subtle representation, in my opinion, the mural does not depict the real experiences of the Chinese in San Francisco because in reality it was characterized by hatred, racism, and repression. With the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the number of Chinese Americans fell from 26,000 in 1881 to 11,000 in 1920. Males were the predominant immigrants to come to San Francisco as laborer and merchants. The Chinese-owned just 10 of the 153 properties in Chinatown in 1873, while the rest were leased from either Italian, German or Anglo-Americans.

Chinese associations in Chinatown were treated with suspicion, but in 1882, it formed an umbrella association, which came to be known as the Chinese Six Companies. It was later changed to Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Association that promoted individual and group economic, political, and social contention (Yung 138). The fortunes of the Chinese in America changed during the Second World War when China allied with the United States against the Japanese. Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act, but this did not change the immigration rate of Chinese to the United States as 105 Chinese kept migrating to the country annually. The end of the world war marked a significant change in the social and economic fortunes of Chinese Americans. The anti-miscegenation law was scrapped in 1948 and was followed with the removal of restrictive regulations in California real estate industry; it was possible for the Chinese to acquire properties in San Francisco.

9. In the Heathen Chinee, Bret Harte intended the audience to read the poem with irony because he satirizes the unfair treatment of the Chinese in the United States. However, his audience did not recognize the irony in his poem and used it to justify racism in the country (Metraux 174). In the poem, the main character, Ah Sin claims not to understand a game of cards, but in reality he concealed some cards in the sleeve of his shirt with the intention of cheating. The ensuing scene, which Harte wanted to satirize the treatment of the Chinese was not understood by the audience and was interpreted as a large-scale riot against the Chinese. The narrator and his friend, who are the two other characters in the poem, symbolize white Americans.

One of the most telling lines in the poem is when he says, “And my language is plain, That for ways that are dark, And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar,—  Which the same I am free to maintain” (Bret Harte, 1). The irony that is lost on the reader is that he is pointing out that he is free to maintain his prejudice view of the Chinese, but they are not free to counter his view, or have a voice in the society in any regard.

It was unfortunate that the poem appeared at a time when the sentiment agent Chinese immigration to California was very strong. Unemployment in California during this period was high and the Chinese competed with the Irish for high paying jobs occasioned by the gold rush. The Chinese were willing to work longer hours for minimal pay, and this denied the Irish their recognized positions in the labor force. The economic depression worsened racial relations between the Chinese and American whites and violence broke out in many parts including San Francisco. Violence against Chinese immigrants showed that Harte’s irony was missed and misinterpreted (Metraux 175). The poem became a rallying force for those who preferred lynching Chinese immigrants instead of welcoming them to America. Harte was against the mistreatment of the mistreatment of the Chinese such as denying them the right to testify against whites in court and attending public schools. Harte did not anticipate the good intentions of his satire, but in some cases, even well-informed satire can get away from the satirist.

Work cited

Beemyn, Brett. Creating a Place For Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories. New York:  Routledge, 2013. Internet Resource.

Metraux, Daniel. How Bret Harte’s Satirical Poem “The Heathen Chinee” Helped Inflame Racism in 1870s America. Southeast review of Asian Studies, Vol 33. 2011. Web.

Richards, Rand. Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guide. San Francisco: Heritage House Publishers, 2011. Print.

Yung, Judy. Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Internet resource.