{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/zp3vt1j65h/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Mark Booker, 1/31/2023"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Mark Booker is a firefighter who grew up in Oakwood in the 1970's and 1980's."]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["5/23/23 at 1:30 PM"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Name of interviewee, date; The Venice Heritage Museum Oral Histories Project; Venice Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA."]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["OH_035"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Beach"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Ss"]},"value":{"en":["access_public"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Mark Booker is a firefighter who grew up in Oakwood in the 1970's and 1980's."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/222/023/small/Mark_Booker.jpg?1713984864","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108843/file/222023","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Mark_Booker.mp4"]},"duration":599.38133,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/222/023/small/Mark_Booker.jpg?1713984864","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108843/file/222023/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108843/file/222023/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-veniceheritagemuseum.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/222/023/original/Mark_Booker.mp4?1713473321","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":599.38133,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108843/file/222023","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108843/file/222023/transcript/67660","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Mark Booker Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108843/file/222023/transcript/67660/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:05:01 - 00:00:09:04\nMy name is Ronald Mark Booker Jr.\n\n00:00:09:06 - 00:00:15:00\nAnd my date of birth is 10.24.1972.\n\n00:00:15:02 - 00:00:17:04\nI moved to Venice when I was three.\n\n00:00:17:04 - 00:00:23:01\nSo ‘75, 1975 to basically present.\n\n00:00:23:03 - 00:00:26:08\nSo I grew up in Oakwood,\n\n00:00:26:10 - 00:00:30:19\nyou know, 5th and Indiana,\r5th and Broadway area.\n\n00:00:30:22 - 00:00:33:19\nSome of the earliest memories were of me\n\n00:00:33:19 - 00:00:36:19\nwatching my mom roller skate\n\n00:00:36:20 - 00:00:40:03\nand do the this stuff on the on the beach.\n\n00:00:40:04 - 00:00:44:00\nAnd then I had like an open, open\rplayground\n\n00:00:44:02 - 00:00:49:03\nbeing able to just skate around, rode\ra skateboard and,\n\n00:00:49:05 - 00:00:51:08\nyou know, I would watch my mom skate.\n\n00:00:51:08 - 00:00:54:06\nThe community kind of raised me back then.\n\n00:00:54:06 - 00:00:57:01\nI don't want to call it a fraternity, but\n\n00:00:57:01 - 00:01:00:03\nbeing from Venice, I was from Venice.\n\n00:01:00:06 - 00:01:07:08\nAnd it made me, made me happy to know\rthat I was a part of something that was\n\n00:01:07:10 - 00:01:08:10\nbigger than me.\n\n00:01:08:10 - 00:01:09:16\nLike a community.\n\n00:01:09:16 - 00:01:12:14\nLike it wasn't like\ryou could do something out of line\n\n00:01:12:14 - 00:01:16:05\nand just do it,\rlike you do something online\n\n00:01:16:06 - 00:01:20:00\nthere was people in the community\rthat would reel you back\n\n00:01:20:00 - 00:01:24:01\nin and be like, uh, uh, you ain’t doing that.\n\n00:01:24:03 - 00:01:26:07\nBut it was more like on the spot.\n\n00:01:26:07 - 00:01:30:03\nLike if you did something wrong\ror out of line,\n\n00:01:30:03 - 00:01:34:00\nyou were checked immediately\rby the community.\n\n00:01:34:05 - 00:01:38:07\nYeah, (inaudible)\rYeah, I think it was my grandma\n\n00:01:38:08 - 00:01:42:18\nthat laid the foundation\rand was kind of like,\n\n00:01:42:20 - 00:01:46:01\nyou know, to my mom, like,\rhey, you're going to\n\n00:01:46:02 - 00:01:49:04\nyou're going to come here and you're going\ryou're going to live here.\n\n00:01:49:08 - 00:01:51:22\nYou know,\rso it was the culture that brought,\n\n00:01:51:22 - 00:01:55:14\nI feel, looking back on it, was a culture and\n\n00:01:55:16 - 00:02:00:04\nand the free bird aspect of how we lived.\n\n00:02:00:06 - 00:02:02:15\nWell, how I've grown up here in Venice.\n\n00:02:02:15 - 00:02:04:23\nI was really\n\n00:02:05:01 - 00:02:06:04\nsomething special.\n\n00:02:06:04 - 00:02:09:11\nI'd like to say that I was pretty\n\n00:02:09:13 - 00:02:12:05\nI don't want to say culturally diverse.\n\n00:02:12:05 - 00:02:14:21\nThat's one of the things\rthat we notice now.\n\n00:02:14:21 - 00:02:18:10\nLike, everyone's like,\rthese people are different and stuff.\n\n00:02:18:10 - 00:02:23:23\nBut like, if you grew up in Venice\rand the era that I grew up in, like broad\n\n00:02:23:23 - 00:02:28:08\nspectrum, the rainbow was already\rthe rainbow before it became popular\n\n00:02:28:08 - 00:02:31:08\nso I respected and appreciated\n\n00:02:31:13 - 00:02:34:13\neveryone, so to speak, where\n\n00:02:34:18 - 00:02:39:12\nbeing from Venice and growing up here, as\n\n00:02:39:14 - 00:02:42:23\nyou know, like a\n\n00:02:43:01 - 00:02:45:01\nlike a degree.\n\n00:02:45:01 - 00:02:48:01\nYou know, it’s like a degree, like people\n\n00:02:48:03 - 00:02:51:22\ngo to college\rand schools of higher learning.\n\n00:02:52:00 - 00:02:56:03\nWell, I, I learned here from the V.,\n\n00:02:56:05 - 00:02:59:13\nYou know what I’m saying, and so I think it helped me out.\n\n00:02:59:15 - 00:03:04:19\nMy daughter has a,\ryou know, it's about pushing forward.\n\n00:03:04:21 - 00:03:08:12\nSo with my daughter\rgoing to the same school that I went to,\n\n00:03:08:15 - 00:03:10:20\nit's a different school now.\n\n00:03:10:20 - 00:03:13:07\nRight. Different school.\n\n00:03:13:09 - 00:03:17:13\nAnd they're, they're you know,\rthey're recognized at a higher level.\n\n00:03:17:15 - 00:03:20:11\nShe's an A student.\n\n00:03:20:11 - 00:03:23:16\nI was an A student but I was still a gang member.\n\n00:03:23:18 - 00:03:25:19\nI still did things.\n\n00:03:25:19 - 00:03:31:21\nSo with regards\rto the generational investment,\n\n00:03:31:21 - 00:03:35:04\nso to speak, it makes me feel comfortable\n\n00:03:35:06 - 00:03:38:19\nbecause I work in a in a realm\rwhere they like, how did you get here?\n\n00:03:38:22 - 00:03:43:03\nOh, my dad was this, or my brother\rwas this, or whatever.\n\n00:03:43:03 - 00:03:50:07\nSo, you know, for me, it's, \rit's important that my daughter can say,\n\n00:03:50:07 - 00:03:56:00\nhey, you know, I went to the same school\rthat my dad went to and my mom.\n\n00:03:56:02 - 00:04:01:04\nBut for the average person somewhere\rother than here, they wouldn't be able to.\n\n00:04:01:09 - 00:04:04:08\nI mean, well,\rthey could say that with conviction, like,\n\n00:04:04:08 - 00:04:07:06\nwell, big deal, big whoopee.\n\n00:04:07:06 - 00:04:10:23\nYou know, but for me,\rbeing pushed out of this community,\n\n00:04:11:01 - 00:04:16:05\n$1.2 million\rfor a home, at the bare minimum,\n\n00:04:16:06 - 00:04:18:20\nI told my wife,\rlike, man, how we're going to make this.\n\n00:04:18:20 - 00:04:21:20\nLike,\rwe're just going to have to work harder.\n\n00:04:21:20 - 00:04:24:19\nThat made a lot of sense to me.\n\n00:04:25:01 - 00:04:27:05\nYou know, like someone was like, you know,\n\n00:04:27:05 - 00:04:30:17\nI talk to people like,\rwhy would you live there?\n\n00:04:30:19 - 00:04:32:17\nWe live in California,\n\n00:04:32:17 - 00:04:35:12\nand it's the investment\rand the roots that I have here.\n\n00:04:35:12 - 00:04:40:23\nAnd bringing my daughter up in a school\rthat I went to means a lot to me.\n\n00:04:41:01 - 00:04:43:14\nIt might be small for the average person,\n\n00:04:43:14 - 00:04:47:13\nbut for people like us, Venetians,\rbecause that's\n\n00:04:47:13 - 00:04:51:09\nwhat I consider myself,  is indigenous.\n\n00:04:51:09 - 00:04:55:06\nI'm indigenous to here\rgrown up, born and raised.\n\n00:04:55:06 - 00:04:56:10\nThis is all I know.\n\n00:04:56:10 - 00:04:58:09\nThat liquor store that's right\racross the street.\n\n00:04:58:09 - 00:05:01:07\nI used to go there with my mom.\n\n00:05:01:07 - 00:05:05:19\nUsed to send me a note to get her provisions,\n\n00:05:05:21 - 00:05:06:21\nyou know.\n\n00:05:06:21 - 00:05:09:13\nAnd I lived right here at the corner\rand like,\n\n00:05:09:13 - 00:05:12:18\nright on the corner of Pacific and Rose\n\n00:05:12:20 - 00:05:15:18\nand then everywhere in between.\n\n00:05:15:18 - 00:05:18:14\nAnd here I am still to this day.\n\n00:05:18:14 - 00:05:22:19\nSo I travel a lot and I work\n\n00:05:22:19 - 00:05:26:13\nwith people from,\ryou know, the continental U.S..\n\n00:05:26:15 - 00:05:29:04\nRight. And,\n\n00:05:29:04 - 00:05:31:10\nyou know, Venice is Venice.\n\n00:05:31:10 - 00:05:32:17\nThey're like, you're from L.A.?\n\n00:05:32:17 - 00:05:37:00\nI'm like, no, man, I'm from Venice,\rnot from L.A.\n\n00:05:37:02 - 00:05:38:13\nI'm from Venice.\n\n00:05:38:13 - 00:05:43:11\nJust, you know, small fraction, you know.\n\n00:05:43:13 - 00:05:48:11\nYou know, so, you know, Venice is its own,\n\n00:05:48:13 - 00:05:51:18\nyou know, I really make that hard line.\n\n00:05:51:20 - 00:05:53:05\nYeah.\n\n00:05:53:05 - 00:05:54:09\nWhat keeps Venice,\n\n00:05:54:09 - 00:05:57:09\nVenice is what I'm retaining off of that.\n\n00:05:57:09 - 00:06:00:08\nAnd I think it's the indigenous people.\n\n00:06:00:08 - 00:06:02:23\nYou still have some indigenous folks\n\n00:06:02:23 - 00:06:05:15\nand they they\n\n00:06:05:15 - 00:06:10:07\nhave an uncanny ability\rto cultivate relationships\n\n00:06:10:07 - 00:06:13:13\nthat relate back to our roots.\n\n00:06:13:14 - 00:06:16:13\nThat's why, you know,\n\n00:06:16:13 - 00:06:19:04\nI lock in to my family.\n\n00:06:19:04 - 00:06:22:01\nThat's from here\rand my friends that are from here.\n\n00:06:22:01 - 00:06:25:01\nI agitate them and rock them every day,\n\n00:06:25:06 - 00:06:28:06\nyou know, to spend time and,\n\n00:06:28:06 - 00:06:33:12\nyou know, I'm fortunate\rto have people that captured the culture,\n\n00:06:33:14 - 00:06:35:01\nregardless of if\n\n00:06:35:01 - 00:06:38:22\nit's like, you know, a photo or\n\n00:06:39:00 - 00:06:41:23\nor a, you know, an error or whatever.\n\n00:06:41:23 - 00:06:43:12\nLike, I lock into that.\n\n00:06:43:12 - 00:06:47:14\nI think that that is\rwhat will keep Venice, Venice,\n\n00:06:47:14 - 00:06:52:11\nbecause the folks that are coming here now\rbuy into that.\n\n00:06:52:13 - 00:06:55:22\nThey,  although\rthey want the grunge in the,\n\n00:06:56:00 - 00:06:59:06\n‘cause we've already, we’ve been,\ryou know, we've been multicultural\n\n00:06:59:06 - 00:07:04:10\nthe whole duration of Venice\ris been phenomenal.\n\n00:07:04:12 - 00:07:08:05\nWe, we made LGBTQ\n\n00:07:08:06 - 00:07:11:09\nall that stuff was already active here\n\n00:07:11:09 - 00:07:15:00\nlike we already embrace that culture\n\n00:07:15:02 - 00:07:20:01\nbut like decades ago\rand now it's like popular, you know.\n\n00:07:20:03 - 00:07:26:00\nBut I think it's the people of this\rcommunity and the legacy that keeps that.\n\n00:07:26:05 - 00:07:28:10\nThat's why Venice will always be Venice.\n\n00:07:28:10 - 00:07:30:08\nYou might have to pay a little extra.\n\n00:07:30:08 - 00:07:33:19\nYou might have to watch that person\rwith the raggedy jeans on and know\n\n00:07:33:19 - 00:07:38:09\nthat you didn't actually skin your knee\rto get that, you know,\n\n00:07:38:09 - 00:07:42:19\nbreak in, in the continuity, your jeans or\n\n00:07:42:21 - 00:07:45:20\nbut you can respect it, you know.\n\n00:07:45:20 - 00:07:50:23\nAnd so I think, I think that's what will\rkeep Venice, Venice the whole time\n\n00:07:50:23 - 00:07:56:12\nand we're attracting, you know\ror people are attracted to this culture,\n\n00:07:56:15 - 00:08:00:23\nyou know.\rWe used to be the ghetto by the beach,\n\n00:08:01:01 - 00:08:04:05\nyou know, until someone recognized\rlike, that's a ghetto.\n\n00:08:04:05 - 00:08:05:14\nWell,\n\n00:08:05:16 - 00:08:07:14\nwe don't got that no more.\n\n00:08:07:14 - 00:08:10:12\nThere's no more people in Oakwood.\n\n00:08:10:12 - 00:08:14:07\nWhen I was a kid, you had black and brown.\n\n00:08:14:09 - 00:08:17:09\nThat's the beauty of Venice, is that,\n\n00:08:17:10 - 00:08:20:07\nyou know, not in a violent way,\rbut if you cause\n\n00:08:20:07 - 00:08:24:12\nsome problems in Venice, when I grew up,\ryou didn't know who you were getting.\n\n00:08:24:12 - 00:08:29:16\nCould be a black dude,\rMexican dude, white boy with a skateboard,\n\n00:08:29:18 - 00:08:33:18\nlike some dude in a wetsuit\rmight even whoop that ass, you know?\n\n00:08:33:21 - 00:08:36:02\nBut that was our culture.\n\n00:08:36:02 - 00:08:36:15\nYou know?\n\n00:08:36:15 - 00:08:40:13\nAnd do, you know,\rI don't promote violence or any of that,\n\n00:08:40:13 - 00:08:43:17\nBut man,\rI sure love to go out and paddle out\n\n00:08:43:17 - 00:08:47:23\nand someone could just look and be like,\rdang, you're indigenous,\n\n00:08:47:23 - 00:08:53:21\nyou know.  Like if I could carry a patch\ror a sticker that said, ‘hey,\n\n00:08:53:23 - 00:08:56:15\nthis guy went to every school here.\n\n00:08:56:15 - 00:09:00:09\nHe's indigenous to here\rrespect that culture,’ you know.\n\n00:09:00:09 - 00:09:03:08\nBut now we,\rwe got, it's different than that.\n\n00:09:03:08 - 00:09:06:04\nYou know, we got people\rthat have been here for 10, 15 years\n\n00:09:06:04 - 00:09:10:08\nand like, I'm a local. I had a guy\rtry and kick me out of the water.\n\n00:09:10:09 - 00:09:14:07\nIt’s like,  ya,  your body boarders are over there.\rI’m like ya,\n\n00:09:14:09 - 00:09:18:01\nI surf.  Surfing is the art of riding waves.\n\n00:09:18:03 - 00:09:19:19\nI ride waves.\n\n00:09:19:19 - 00:09:23:00\nWho are you to tell me why,  I'm from here?\n\n00:09:23:00 - 00:09:24:09\nIt's like, wow.\n\n00:09:24:09 - 00:09:27:14\nSo being humble is the main thing.\n\n00:09:27:18 - 00:09:30:15\nAnd that's why I try and,\rlike I said, blend in\n\n00:09:30:15 - 00:09:34:14\nlike a tourist man, and,\ryou know, get in where I fit in.\n\n00:09:34:14 - 00:09:37:14\nBut I guarantee you this much,\rI fit in here.\n\n00:09:37:17 - 00:09:38:17\nI'm a part of this.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/108843/file/222023#t=0.0,599.38133"}]}]}]}