Kala Bagai

Berkeley city officials, the Bagai family and others unveiled the renamed Kala Bagai Way on Thursday, the first street in Berkeley to be named after an Asian immigrant.

Berkeley City Council struck down a vote of no confidence in Berkeley Police Chief Andrew Greenwood, citing a lack of authority over city department heads. 

The Pacific Center for Human Growth, just off the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Derby Street, is quiet, hushed, closed. At its front, a pride flag flutters in phantom breezes. Barnali Ghosh tells me that this is where, if circumstances were normal, the Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour would begin.

In the early 1900s, Kala Bagai and her family were driven out of the city of Berkeley by racism, but last Tuesday, Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to name a street located in the heart of Berkeley after her.

Kala Bagai was one of the first South Asian women on the West Coast, moving to the Bay Area with her family in 1915 from present-day Pakistan, and now, a street in the heart of Berkeley will likely be named after her.

Berkeley City Council narrowed down 913 submissions from the public to rename the reconfigured two-block stretch of Shattuck Avenue “East” and is asking community members to vote on the final submissions.