Unintentional Ethnography

February 28th 2026

Note: The idea for this article emerged on a walk at Albany Bulb as I shared these discussions with a friend, a fellow UC Berkeley Anthropology student. She remarked on the ethnographic element of these conversations. This article is also to commemorate how Anthropology has impacted my interpretation of the information learned in my daily life and the history I have joined as a resident of the East Bay.

As I moved to the East Bay for the beginning of my journey at UC Berkeley in 2026, my rhythm was dictated by school and my newly adopted dog, Zora. As we explored Oakland and the Berkeley Hills in our first few months together, the poison oak and ticks redirected us to the East Bay Coast. The Coast is composed of a few peninsulas which host popular dogparks for locals. Our favorite is Albany bulb, located in Albany behind the now-closed Golden Gate Fields horse racing track, as it has a little beach and a wealth of trails. Across a stretch of water to the south lies Cesar Chavez Park next to the Berkeley Marina in Berkeley. Unwittingly, as a new dog parent, I discovered and documented the inner workings of the coastal life of dog parks, where dogs are the gatekeepers to human connection, and where layers of history surface in the most casual conversations.

Zora and I got to meet a wealth of other dogs and their humans and developed friendly relations with regulars. Dog spaces and communities revealed themselves as parallel spaces to human-centric society, in which societal norms are renegotiated. These exclusive moments are devoted to the exercise and well-being of our dogs. We humans shed our various statuses to solely define and present ourselves as our pet’s guardians. For example, it is customary to remember a dog’s name but not necessarily the human’s, so common identity markers are disregarded. In other words, one’s identity is thus merged to one’s dog; human’s best friend becoming the referent. Personalities meet and express themselves not only human to human, but intrinsically linked through our dog’s behaviors and interactions with their fellow canine peers. Interactions and communications are held on different terms than in human-centric society, and even the rhythm of discussion is dictated by the dogs, as they are often interrupted by commands to maintain good behavior. It is a small and mostly unconscious but striking shift in how social identities are constructed and maintained based on context.

Our dogs not only renegotiate our identities and interactions with others but also with the dog-friendly public spaces we frequent. As a regular attendee, one ends up spending a considerable amount of time chatting with the same strangers on topics ranging from weather, politics, arts, food and most importantly our dogs and these dog-dedicated spaces. When I started to frequent these parks in March of 2024, I got to learn more about the history of these peninsulas turned dog/human park. The development of the settled cities of Berkeley and Albany transformed these two peninsulas into municipal dump sites from the late 50s and early 60s until 1983 (Briscoe, 2024). In 2024, there were concerns among park-goers of the potential harmful impact of remaining radiation levels. Talks of testing were rampant and conversations contrasted Albany and Berkeley’s approach to the issue. Some of the most involved residents attended city meetings and read every bit of information possible sharing information both in person and also digitally. For instance, Ivy’s dad, the default ‘mayor’ of the Cesar Chavez dog park community, shared the latest news through his email newsletter dedicated to the dog park.

Belonging to the community led me to research these seemingly mundane and silent spaces of my daily life, including the radioactive topic. According to the Albany Bulb website, the City of Albany contracted Environmental GSI to run tests in June 2024. Later, during a City Council Meeting on December 2nd, 2024, Nicole Almaguer, City Manager, concluded that “the initial findings have not indicated any major concern or any direct risk to public health and safety” (AlbanyKALB, 2024). In the meanwhile, the City of Berkeley did radiological testing at Cesar Chavez with the aid of UC Berkeley Nuclear Engineering researchers between September 30th and October 4, 2025. The results “were consistent with natural background levels and there were no areas of concern” (Berkeley City, 2025) according to the Berkeley City Manager, Paul Buddenhagen. Ultimately, all was well and we all went back to walking our dogs peacefully never to discuss the matter again.

Another important and recurrent topic of conversation was the history of Albany Bulb after the cessation of its use as a dump in 1983 before becoming a park. I was told by different individuals that this stretch of land was populated by a creative community, with rumors of parties hosted at the park, along with people foraging metals for resale. Overall, these anecdotes depicted a sort of anarchist community secluded from the mainland with its own set of rules. This community came to an end according to another regular, when the Bulb’s inhabitants were paid by the city of Albany to evacuate the premises.

Susan Moffat’s article The Battle of the Bulb: Nature, Culture and Art at a San Francisco Bay Landfill (Moffat, 2017) confirms a lot of these stories, by introducing residents of the Bulb and their creative organizations. She also humanizes and demystifies homelessness by introducing folks that just hit a hard patch, such as the victims of the 2008 financial crisis suddenly becoming homeless and finding refuge at the Bulb. The city did evacuate the community in 1999, then again in 2014. The second time around, affordable housing was offered as incentive and for those who refused, a $3,000 check. The park was then incorporated in the McLaughlin Eastshore State Park and is now managed by the East Bay Regional Park District. Yet, the creativity of its previous community lives on with anonymous sculptures and artworks all along the Albany Bulb’s paths. Similar to its history, some artworks persist through time withered by the weather and altered by human intervention, others appear and disappear on the whim of anonymous artists through the seasons.

The materiality of memories of past history at Albany Bulb, also raises the questions of absent narratives. The notable ethnographic absence of this project, from both shared stories and landscape, is the longlasting and fundamental history of the Ohlone people, specifically the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone known as xučyun (Huichin) (Muwekma) which inhabited this stretch of the East Bay. In my opinion, one of the key reasons is that individuals shared lived memories. The age demographic of the dog park goers were wide ranging but I was notably one of the youngest. Thus, the addressed timeframe only encompassed the past 50 years or so.

As an American anthropology student, I am compelled to interpret the absence of the history of the Ohlone people from these public spaces as proof of the complexity and violence of the colonial history of the U.S. A key element in understanding how the legacy of this history in public memory and landscape continues to impact the constructed narrative of subsequent violent events such as the displacement of the Albany Bulb community in both 1999 and 2014. The leisure aspects of these spaces, unfortunately, perpetuates the silence of injustices. The history of Albany Bulb and Cesar Chavez Park ultimately provides a localized example of the consequences of colonization, modernization and gentrification in the San Francisco Bay and how these narratives were shaped and integrated or erased from public spaces.

Zora impacted not only my identity but also how I interacted with people and spaces I encountered, leading me onto unfamiliar but welcoming paths. On the other hand, my anthropology training allowed me to interpret these experiences from a new critical lens. These walks gave me access to oral and lived stories while others were uncovered through research. This newly developed knowledge showcased the complexity of public spaces and identities intertwined with history; visible or not, known or unknown.

Works Cited
AlbanyKALB. 2024. Albany City Council – Dec. 2, 2024. YouTube video, livestream. https://www.youtube.com/live/L068rd4V3dI?t=535s.
Berkeley City. 2025. Results of Radiological Testing at César Chávez Park. Berkeley, CA: City of Berkeley. https://newspack-berkeleyside-cityside.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/httpsberkeleyca. govsitesdefaultfilesdocumentsResults20of20Radiological20Testing20at20Cesar20Chavez20Park.pdf. 
Briscoe, Tony. 2024. “Revelations of Possible Radioactive Dumping Around the Bay Area Trigger New Testing at Parks.” Los Angeles Times, May 14. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-05-14/bay-area-radioactive-waste.
“Historical Overview”. Muwekma. Accessed November 17, 2025. https://www.muwekma.org/historical-overview.html.
Moffat, Susan. 2017.
“The Battle of the Bulb: Nature, Culture and Art at a San Francisco Bay Landfill.” Boom California, January 1. https://boomcalifornia.org/2017/01/01/the-battle-of-the-bulb-nature-culture-and-art-at-a-san-francisco-bay landfill/. 
Photographs courtesy of the Author, taken at Albany Bulb, 2024-25