An area with a reputation for crime, drugs and gangs, populated mostly by one migrant community. A familiar description of Alum Rock – except this is not Alum Rock, Birmingham B8, but Alum Rock, San Jose, CA 95127.
Anyone who types “Alum Rock” into Google or YouTube quickly encounters this “other” Alum Rock of cycling in Alum Rock Park and basketball at the Alum Rock Youth Center
I was able to visit the Californian Alum Rock in August 2009. A ninety minute journey on the pleasingly clangy Cal Train south of San Francisco through Silicon Valley took me to San Jose. Two bus rides later I was walking along Alum Rock Avenue, the broad seven mile thoroughfare from the city of San Jose to the foothills of Alum Rock Park.
At first glance the setting could not be more different from the Alum Rock Road in Birmingham: the hills of the park overlook a quiet shopping parade with a Starbucks at the intersection:
and further along White Avenue the five million pound Alum Rock Youth Center with its highly polished sports hall and play activities:
Yet the two Alum Rocks have more in common than at first sight: in California like in Birmingham one ethnic community predominates: 71% of the population of 15,000 are Hispanic. Local residents of the San Jose Alum Rock told me “you don’t want to live here”, “there’s a lot of gangs”. A few days after my visit a young woman was murdered at the Alum Rock transit station from which I’d caught my bus.
Yet like in Birmingham, community organisations attempt to bring shape and structure to everyday life. The Californian Alum Rock has a traders' association and a a Methodist church.
As with Naseby Centre in Alum Rock, the Alum Rock Youth Center has faced the prospect of closure.
This unexpected connection between two Alum Rocks five thousand miles apart offers opportunities. How enriching and fascinating if the two communities could be ‘twinned’ in some way, with both online and face to face connections, one day perhaps exchange visits.
I now know the way to San Jose, many more from East Birmingham should have the chance to follow.
