Silicon Valley capitalists think you shouldn’t have a say in how technology works. The 19th-century Luddite movement offers us clues about how to wrest back control.
At the end of 2006, a group of activists and students began a “tree-sit” outside of Memorial Stadium on the University of California, Berkeley campus to help save a grove of old California live oaks that were to be torn down for a new athletics facility.
The activists argued that it was illegal to cut down a live oak in the city of Berkeley, which is true. However, UC Berkeley argued that the school was on state land and so was exempt from the city's law. After nearly two years of contentious battles with the school, the public, and the courthouses, the tree-sit ended with the grove being cut, and the new facility built in its place.
For many across the Bay Area, the California live oak is a symbol of strength. To see it torn down was to see a symbol of fortitude, and an integral piece of the landscape, disappear for the sake of a bloated sports department.
Live oaks are native to California. Almost their entire range is within the state, save a few areas in northern Baja. Their leaves are small, deep green with sharp edges that can prick an absentminded hand. It gave its name to Oakland, and became the city's emblem.
These trees have withstood so much of the recent and damaging history of California western expansionism. Their hard wood and waxy leaves make them fire resistant, and so are at home on the open grasslands of the West, the natural sight of wildfires.
Live oaks are also a vital food source for many animals, such as acorn woodpeckers, western grey squirrels, and Hutton’s vireos, a small green songbird that Clark C. Fleet called “the spirit of the live oak tree.” While Ohlone and Miwok people in the area preferred the acorns of black oak, they use live oak acorns for flour and to make a staple dish called “wiiwish.”
The live oaks' strong wood and long sprawling branches embody resilience in a formidable landscape of long dry spells and constant threat of fire. I think of the city of Oakland as a place that longs for a more just and kind world, a city with far reaching branches, but a city that must often contend with the struggles of a challenging world that surrounds it. Oakland, simply, is a tough city, but a city with firm roots and wide open branches that welcome all who are willing to live beneath its shade.
Cole Hersey is a writer based in Oakland, California. His work focuses on environmental topics and the arts. His work has been featured in Bay Nature, Earth Island Journal, and elsewhere.
