Poet Josiah Luis Alderete (S3E26)

Photography by Michelle Kilfeather

Josiah Luis Alderete's poetry speaks for a people devastated by gentrification and colonization.

In Part 1, Josiah traces his life back to his parents' union at a club in North Beach roughly 50 years ago. He moved around the Bay Area a bit, from various spots in the Mission to Marin and back. He tells stories from the back room at Cafe Babar, including his first time to read poetry in front of people, and the connections he made as a result. Josiah reflects on how he finds representation and expression in poetry. He and other poets formed a group called Molotov Mouths that toured the country doing readings, which he'll talk more about in Part 2.

Josiah ends this podcast describing the world of artists in the Mission in the late-'80s and early-'90s and the influence that Bucky Sinister had on him.

In Part 2, Josiah shares stories from his time with Molotov Mouths, the touring poetry collective from the 1990s. He pivots to talking about the gentrification he saw happening first-hand in the Mission in the late-'90s/early-2000s.

Josiah has been working at City Lights Books in North Beach for the last several years, and he talks about his job at this iconic San Francisco business (which is open during the pandemic).

He ends this podcast with a hella powerful poem about gentrification in the Mission. The words to that poem:

I got the Galería De La Raza blues
I said, I got the Galería De La Raza Blues.
I remember mi mamá taking me to see matinees
at the old Mission Theatre of black and white
India Maria movies and 70’s cop flicks dubbed in Español.
I remember Valencia Street cuando it was nothing but long stretches of appliance stores
Leather Tongue Video, the Chameleon Bar y four independent bookstores.
I remember using the payphone outside of La Rondalla
Hitting “#911 #911” and waiting for my dealer to round the corner in his van.
I remember cuando El Día de los Muertos procession was not
a DJ block party
With margarita tube drinks and techies
still wearing their Austin Powers and sexy maid costumes
because they think that this is a “Mexican Halloween”.


I got the Galería De La Raza Blues


I said, I got the Galería De La Raza Blues.
I remember being handed Xeroxed broadsheets of poems by Swan the Pigeon Man
in the afternoons in the old Dolores Park.
I remember the poet Jack Micheline’s painted room
in the back of Abandoned Planet Books.
I remember Café Macondo, Café Babar, Balazo Gallery y La Casa del Libro.
 I remember someone finding a pink prom dress in the doorway of Esta Noche the next morning.


I got the Galería De La Raza Blues


I said, I got the Galería De La Raza Blues.
I remember young dealers from Nicaragua posting up
hella early on the corner of 24th y Folsom
dope balloons in their mouths
working off an American debt.
I remember seeing the Red Man
always painted in red- clothes,fingernails, skin, eyebrows, mustache
wandering the streets of La Mission mumbling words that came out red.
I remember being told that Oscar Zeta Acosta
lived and wrote in an SRO hotel on Valencia Street
Above what is now yet another pinche pour-over coffee spot.
I remember the donut shop on 20th y Mission
with its donuts in the front and stolen TV’s in the back
and it’s sign that read, “Open 25 Hours a Day”.
I remember George Tirado’s 500lb shadow.
I remember Francisco X Alarcón's tiny bifocals.
I remember Rene Yañez as a giant intricately painted up cardboard angelito
residing over all of this.
I remember that Sonia Sanchez y Nancy Morejon have walked these streets.
I remember that Avotjca still wanders these streets.
I remember Alfonso Texidor’s limp.


I got the Galeria de La Raza Blues


I remember these things so that I can remember
mi neighborhood
But also so that I do not forget you, San Francisco,
So that I don't get lost in the forests of reclaimed wood that is
lining your cafe’s insides and dot.com outsides, San Francisco.
So that I can get out of the way
of the Ubers and Lyfts and Google Buses
that are not driving me anywhere
That is a real part of you, San Francisco.
I’m tired of reminiscing about the places where mi cultura and neighborhood used to be.
I’m tired of you becoming memorias and the gone views
that we conjure and describe
To people that have never been here
And ask “What is San Francisco really like?”


I got the Galería De La Raza Blues.

Please check out Josiah's reading series, Speaking Axolotl, on Facebook. 

We recorded this podcast on Zoom during quarantine in San Francisco in July 2020. Special thanks to S3E1 storyteller Cassandra Dallett for introducing us to Josiah.