Editorial: "My Home Town is a Much Better Place"

Want to receive Sausalito event updates via email? Subscribe in the box at the upper right! We never ever share or sell email addresses.

Editorial: "My Home Town is a Much Better Place"

We constantly scour the web for any and all things Sausalito. This week, in the midst of compiling the August, 2009 Best Restaurants and Best Hotels lists, we came across something that was disturbing.

The quote jumped out at me from the screen. In nine months of working with the team analyzing this data I had never seen anything like it.

"Sausalito has too many foreigners. My home town is a much better place."

Note: Quote altered and town omitted to avoid Google lookups; this isn't about starting a witch hunt to attack the writer.

So what bothered me so much? We all get a little frustrated at times here when we're in a hurry and the streets of Sausalito are packed with people. And lots of them are in fact foreigners, visiting from very different cultures and speaking different languages.

The quote upsets me when I think about a great-grandfather who was part of construction crews building homes and businesses in Sausalito, long before the Golden Gate Bridge was erected. He was a foreigner, and spoke English with an accent.

I think about how much fun it was to stand in line at the Deli today in Sausalito and hear Italian, Chinese, Spanish and a language I couldn't recognize all being spoken in that small room in a five-minute period.

I think about the next four Featured Artists we'll present here at OurSausalito.com. Two (at least) of these four wonderful talents spoke another language before they learned English.

I think about members of our editorial team who have ancestors that were in North America before the Europeans arrived. Could all of us except them be foreigners?

As I mentioned above, this editorial is not about a witch hunt "because someone said something wrong." After reading the quote and thinking about it all day I felt compelled to write one thing.

I think Sausalito is a better place. It's better because it welcomed the foreigners with accents who helped build the town. It's better because some of the best artists from around the world come here to hone and practice their craft. It's better because the people of Sausalito welcome visitors instead of judging them. And it's better because here we get to be citizens of the World, not just a tiny part of one continent.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I look forward to hearing your opinions as well.