Tech Workers in San Francisco, Part 1

My name is Jeff Tam, and yes, I am a tech worker living in San Francisco. The horror of it, right? To hear of the stories that have been in blogosphere and the San Francisco press the last few years, we are gentrifying the neighborhoods, kicking out the blue collar working class and their families, destroying cultural traditions, flaunting huge sums of money wastefully, and going to work in luxurious company buses that take up the space of public bus stops. We, the tech workers, must be an uber-privileged, entitled, spoiled, under-appreciative, boring, non-ethnically diverse lot.
There are very legitimate and real concerns and issues underlying these stories, including issues around social justice, housing, gentrification, jobs, culture, families, and others. I will address these real issues in Part 2 of this blog post, which will be published in the near future.

There are also many emotive reactions that are arising from these concerns, which in turn evoke personal and emotive reactions for me. So this blog post will be less about policy issues and more about my personal observations, feelings, and stories.

I don't feel disconnected from the "traditional" culture of San Francisco, whatever that is. Nor do I feel like the tech snob everybody makes people like me to be. Here's my story. As a first generation immigrant from Hong Kong, I grew up in Southern California and took frequent visits to my grandfather in San Francisco and uncle in Sacramento. They, like countless Chinese immigrants looking for a better opportunity away from Communism, had settled in San Francisco and other places in the Bay Area. Indeed, a third of San Franciscans are of Asian heritage. I definitely had a middle class upbringing, and I felt privileged to grow up in a nice, leafy suburb (Irvine). But I never felt entitled- not during our first year in America when our family of four lived together in a small guest room in my grandmother's house, and not through the tough economic times of the ‘90-91 recession. My dad ended up having to go back to Asia for a job because he couldn't find a job that could support our family here. My parents, among the first in their families to earn a college education, always taught me to value a good education, hard work, respect for our elders, and thriftiness. I went to college at Stanford University, proud to have graduated top of my class at my public high school, and lucky to be one of only three graduates from my high school that year to make it to Stanford. Upon graduation in 2002, instead of moving to San Francisco in already gentrifying hip neighborhoods like the Mission, I moved to Daly City to live in a cheap pad with pink carpet with three other similarly young, wonderful roommates. My first job was at an enterprise software company in San Francisco. Eight months later, with my roommates on the move, I looked on Craigslist for places to live in San Francisco, and settled into another flat with three other roommates, this time in the Inner Sunset. My share of the rent: $550 a month.

I stayed in that place for seven years, and like generations of new San Franciscans, fell head over heels with San Francisco and decided that I never wanted to leave. My living conditions were basic: I lived in a scrappy little room with minimal window insulation and no heat vents. Four of us had to share one bathroom. But I loved my place. I loved the 1920's rounded ceilings in my room, the wood paneling on the walls, and a beautiful living room with an elegant brick fireplace, wood built-ins, and original wood windows and French doors. I loved the many roommates who lived in our house through the years; many of my friends outside of college and high school were made in those four walls.

Being from Hong Kong, I deeply craved and missed the feeling of living in a built up urban city with good public transport and Chinese food within striking distance. I cursed the N-Judah during those early years like so many fellow MUNI riders, still I loved the urbanity of taking a train to work. I enjoyed the Inner Subset, because it is close to Chinese restaurants and supermarkets that reminded me of home, close to a great diversity of various other ethnic restaurants near 9th and Irving, close to the ocean, Golden Gate Park with all its attractions, close to all the other little village neighborhoods near me that give San Francisco its unique charm, close to my regular barber for the last ten years and our little monthly chats in Cantonese about her not-studious-enough and too-interested-in-girls ABC teenage son who eventually did grow up and make it to college (she charged $10 for her cuts; nowadays I pay $15), close to local secrets like Grand View Park and cute Rousseau houses near Sunset Boulevard and Noriega, close to many wonderful friends and roommates, and close to the woman I met who also lived in the neighborhood and who would eventually become my wife.

I am one of the lucky few who (yes, in no small share thanks to Silicon Valley) eventually made enough money (combined with my wife's money hard earned through her salary as an architectural historian) to buy a house. No, we couldn't afford the Marina, or the Mission, Potrero Hill, and Cole Valley. For that matter, we also had trouble affording our old neighborhood in the Sunset. We did buy a nice little 1930s house with a darling terraced backyard in the unfashionable Outer Mission, a block away from Balboa Park BART. We love our Spanish Mediterranean house.

So long story short, yes, I feel lucky to have a good life in San Francisco and gainful employment as a director of product management at a small Silicon Valley company (no crazy blowout Christmas party, no free lunches or ping pong tables or special perks like a masseur in the office; yes we get free snacks and drinks, yes I did used to work at Yahoo with its corporate buses, foosball tables, in-office gym, and free cafetaria). Yes, I know a few who have made their million or millions thanks to a combination of acuity, hard work, and luck. But no, I personally did not make my millions. I don't know any friends or colleagues as described in the press as soulless spoiled tech brats either. Many of them aren't white, male, suburban genius kids. Many of them are first generation immigrants. Many of them have families and work hard to make their monthly mortgage payments. Many of them volunteer, participate in community organizations, go into politics, or otherwise engage in and with their community.

In conclusion, my friends and I don't smoke Cuban cigars and sit on a gold-plated throne at home. Now pretty please, will you let me stay in this wonderful city, my city, my San Francisco? Please? See part 2 here.