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Across the Bay Area, residents took advantage of clear skies and mild temperatures to celebrate the Fourth of July with parades, barbecues and picnics outside.
Decked out in red, white, and blue, families lined the streets of San Jose’s Rose Garden neighborhood for the city’s 11th annual Fourth of July parade on Wednesday.
As children looked on and dogs adorned with patriotic kerchiefs lapped up attention and fallen treats, vintage cars and festive floats wound their way from Dana Avenue over to Naglee Avenue and along The Alameda.
“The best part is to look at all the neighborhood people,” said Ashu Sharma, 37, who lives near the parade route and wandered over mid-morning.
Crowds numbering at least 30,000 cheered as the Vietnamese Veterans of America Chapter 201 and the Bay Area Sikhs of America marched by along with a bevy of local politicians and clubs, around 2,000 participants in total.
Too often, people are trapped in their cars, running from place to place, Sharma said, but everyone comes together for the holiday.
Sarabjot Singh, a 16-year-old member of Boy Scout Troop 600, known as the Sikh Scouts, who marched in the parade, agrees.
“It’s great to see the different cultures meeting at the parade,” he said.
Officially known as the Rose, White and Blue Parade, the parade’s grand marshal this year was Tim Ritchie, the president of the Tech Museum of Innovation in a nod to this year’s theme, “Technology in the Valley.”
“Every year we try to pick a theme that really resembles our community and where we are and what’s going on around us,” said Bryan Franzen, the president of the parade.
And some of the latest technology to surface in San Jose was in fact on display, with a number of parade-goers using the electric scooters that have appeared around the city in recent months to zoom along the route and past road closures.
Hungry attendees munched on snacks from a lineup of food trucks that varied from Mexican to Korean cuisine. Judd Xavier bought his 6-year-old daughter, Laurea, a popsicle from an ice cream cart.
“It’s so family friendly,” Xavier said, gesturing around at the open street where kids were riding bicycles and families sprawled in the shade were unpacking picnic baskets.
Across the bay in Oakland’s Jack London Square, artisans, musicians and food vendors set up shop in the narrow Water Street promenade for the annual Fourth of July BBQ Block Party. Several hundred people packed the three-block stretch of music stages, a beer garden and a children’s playground.
Smoke filled the air as several restaurants cooked meat on open grills.
“The barbecue is so tender,” said Audrey James, 65, of Oakland, while holding a baby back rib in her hand. “It’s very nice to be here. You just walk around and see all these interesting things.”
James and her friend, Letha Osborne, 61, also of Oakland, are frequent visitors to Jack London Square’s dance events. Osborne said she bought some incense from a vendor “at a pretty reasonable price.”
As James and Osborne dined not far from Big Serg BBQ, an Oakland-based barbecue restaurant that set up shop in the middle of the promenade, animal rights protesters from the group Direct Action Everywhere walked past, chanting against the slaughter of animals for meat consumption and for the recognition of animal rights as they did last year. One protester was caged and another spilled fake blood on the pavement.
Sergio Oseguera, the owner and cook at Big Serg BBQ, said the protesters did not disturb his outdoor barbecue rack.
“Activists hope to denormalize violence to animals and to normalize the act of taking direct action to challenge violence,” according to a news release from the group. “Someday soon, they hope to see events at Jack London Square where no animals are harmed.”
Nearby, a beer garden featured breweries based in or near Jack London Square. Crooked City Cider, a newcomer, hopes to open a brick-and-mortar cider bar in the square in September.
Dana Bushouse, the owner and brewer of Crooked City Cider, said she is still nearly $30,000 short of her fundraising goal to start the cider bar.
But she hopes the holiday block party can help her reach her goal.
“I started out of my basement four years ago because I wanted to make ciders I wanted to drink,” Bushouse said. “When the masses come to Jack London Square, we want people to come to us.”
