The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Hand in Hand: Many Silicon Valley gays are so comfortable in their lives that they don't feel the need to be activists, says Glen resident Barbara Jones, walking Hank with her partner, Sandra McCullough.

Glen is a 'safe place' for the largest S.J. gay community

'Our neighbors are wonderful'

By Michelle Ku

Willow Glen 95125, the gay ZIP code. When Barbara Jones, executive director of the Billy De Frank Lesbian and Gay Community Center, and her partner of three years, Sandra McCullough, began their search for a home in the San Jose area, the choice was simple.

"Everybody kept saying, 'Oh, you have to live in Willow Glen,' " Jones says. "So this is where we started looking. They referred to it as the 'gay ZIP code.' They said a lot of gay and lesbian people live in Willow Glen, and it's a pretty comfortable neighborhood. Your neighbors are pretty professional people, so the people you are going to run into aren't going to harass you."

Located five miles from the largest lesbian and gay community center in the country, Willow Glen is home to the highest concentration of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in San Jose. While some in the community are open about their sexuality, many choose not to be.

When Ralph Serpe moved to Willow Glen five years ago from New York with his partner, Tom Kushner, he wasn't afforded the opportunity of choosing whether to be public about his sexuality. "My partner and I didn't have the luxury of being, I guess, in the closet," Serpe says. "When we moved in, our real estate agent had already told some of our neighbors."

The real estate agent told some of Serpe's new neighbors that a couple was moving in, and he provided the neighbors with the biographies and backgrounds of Serpe and Kushner. "He didn't do it in a bad way," Serpe says, "but in a Willow Glen way. People in this area are interested in who their neighbors are."

Because Serpe knew he was moving to the Bay Area, an area known for its diverse lifestyles and family structures, he expected that people wouldn't be surprised about another gay family moving into the neighborhood. "Any time people who are different, whether it's different sexual orientations or different ethnicities, move into a neighborhood, you always have some trepidation about how the established neighborhood will greet you and welcome you," he says.

Serpe had planned on telling his neighbors about his sexuality, but on his own terms and in his own way. Despite not having the opportunity to get to know his neighbors first before telling them about his sexuality, everything has worked out for Serpe and his partner, he says: "I can only speak for our particular situation on Glenwood Avenue, but our neighbors are wonderful."

While Serpe and Jones are open about their sexuality, many are not. The vast majority of the gay and lesbian people in the area are probably in the closet, Jones believes.

Fewer Activists

The feeling that Jones gets from people in the Silicon Valley is that they are comfortable with their lives and who they are--so much so that they don't feel the need to be an activist.

"People have their comfortable jobs and their nice houses," Jones says. "They've made it, so to speak. They don't have the political jobs or the necessity to be more of an activist. So many companies in the valley have provisions for domestic partners. What is left that they need to have?"

Despite the size of the area's gay community, Jones says she doesn't believe that Willow Glen is home to any gay social or political groups. "They may exist," she says, "but I haven't found them yet. Most of that type of organizing is being done at the community center."

"San Jose is not known as one of the gay meccas of the country like San Francisco or Los Angeles or New York," Serpe says. "So you have to do some digging to find out where gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people live."

The Billy De Frank Center, located on Stockton Street, has a map of San Jose on its walls, and gays and lesbians are invited to put a pin on the map signifying where they live in the surrounding area. The map has clumps of pins in downtown San Jose, Naglee Park, the Rose Garden area and Willow Glen. After Willow Glen, the second-largest concentration of gays and lesbians is the Rose Garden area.

In the Glen, there is a gay, lesbian or bisexual couple on every block, says Ralph Serpe: "[Often] they grew up here."

Gay and lesbian people are attracted to California because of places like San Francisco or Los Angeles; once they arrive in San Francisco, they tend to migrate to other parts of the Bay Area, says Chris Aumack, a Willow Glen resident and supporter of gay and lesbian civil rights for the last 17 years.

Willow Glen has proven to be a fairly friendly place for gays and lesbians. "There's gay-bashing at every place in the world, even in the most supportive of environments," Aumack says. "Willow Glen is supportive of gays and lesbians compared to, say, Stockton. The world has a long way to go, but the Bay Area is probably the best place in the world for gays and lesbians.

"I really like the area," she says. "It's nice for me. It seems like on almost every block in Willow Glen you can find a [gay] pride flag or a pride bumper sticker on a car. When going to Starbucks, you can see two women holding hands, drinking coffee. It feels like a safe place to live."

Besides being home to gays and lesbians, Willow Glen is also home to gay and lesbian businesses. The corporate headquarters of Rainbow Wireless, a cellular phone and paging company, is located in Willow Glen. Andrew Lloyd, CEO of Rainbow Wireless, says he selected Willow Glen for the corporate headquarters because of its central location.

Lloyd says he chose to name the company "Rainbow" after the rainbow flag, the symbol of the gay community. He wanted to be an "out" company so that when someone looks at the logo, the person can immediately see that it's a gay-run company.

Being an easily recognizable gay company has not hurt Rainbow Wireless' business, Lloyd says. "It's bolstered my business because my specific target market is the gay and lesbian community--which has a higher expendable income than any other specialty group because they generally don't have kids and don't have to put kids through school."

[ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ]