Introduction

As a longtime resident and former mayor of East Palo Alto, Ruben Abrica remembers when he could have bought a home in his city for just over $200,000. That was in 2009. Today, he drives through the same neighborhood, where the same house is listed for $1 million.

“Someone who’s got more money than you (is) going to replace you,” Abrica said. “This is gentrification displacement.”

East Palo Alto Mayor Antonio Lopez said to understand East Palo Alto’s gentrification, it’s first important to understand the term.

“Gentrification is the process whereby things get more expensive because folks from higher income communities come into a place that’s lower income and thereby increase the cost of living for everyone who lives there,” Lopez said.

Following World War II, many minority families began to consider Palo Alto as a region to settle.

In the past, East Palo Alto had a large African-American population, because the city’s affordability attracted African Americans after World War II, AP US History teacher Katya Villalobos said.

And former Palo Alto Mayor Patrick Burt said World War II was a catalyst for increasing diversity in East Palo Alto.

“Defense industries brought a great migration of African Americans from the South to the Bay Area, in Richmond, within San Francisco itself and in East Palo Alto,” Burt said.

However, this diversity did not last. According to the U.S. Census, the population of African Americans in East Palo Alto dropped from over 60 percent in 1980 to 15 percent in 2020.

Palo Alto and East Palo Alto have always been two separate cities, but in an attempt to bridge the gap, the 1986 Voluntary Transfer Program, more commonly known as the Tinsley program after former parent Margaret Tinsley, brings up to 135 students each year from East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park to other school districts, including PAUSD.

“The Tinsley program was the result of a desegregation lawsuit that was filed by some families in the Ravenswood School District in East Palo Alto,” Abrica said. “Ravenswood School District covers East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park.”

The lawsuit said racial differences between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto create a segregated school system. And a settlement order in San Mateo County Court in response to a petition filed by Margaret Tinsley and other parents of the Ravenswood School District sided with the plaintiffs.

“The student population of respondent Ravenswood City School District elementary schools is predominantly minority, while the student populations in the elementary schools of the other respondent school districts are predominantly white,” the petition states. “Because of the interdistrict racial imbalance in student enrollment, minority students are realistically isolated, and so a segregated school system exists.”