2022 Foreword To “A Real San Francisco Story. With Pets.”

A little over two years ago (July 11, 2020) I published my first book, A Real San Francisco Story. With Pets. Many told me I was too young to publish an autobiography. Well, I did it anyway.

A Real San Francisco Story. With Pets. is my story told through the lenses of six of my identities: animal-lover, student, entrepreneur, individual of mixed race, gay male, and native San Franciscan.

This was before I decided to run for Congress, and thus the time spanned a period before that year 2020, The Year That Changed Everything. Running for political office was life changing, to say the very least. I have seen a side of San Francisco I cannot unsee. And in many ways I am still processing the experience.

A Real San Francisco Story. With Pets describes a much simpler time, and while I stand 100% behind my original words, my views on some things have changed.

One experience I talk about in the first version of my book was being a part of now Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. I include an open letter to the Vice President, and express my admiration for her, and my hope to one day see her elected as the first woman president.

Although I anticipate the day when the United States will elect its first female President, and believe wholeheartedly that representation matters, I have been incredibly disappointed by the Biden Administration’s failure to deliver anything of substance for the American working class while enabling corporate greed to destroy our planet and collective future.

The Biden Administration has made it explicitly clear that change will not happen through the duopoly. Until we remove the corporate interests from our political system, end lifetime appointments, and impose term limits (at the bare minimum) we will never have a true democracy, and we will continue to be ruled by the wealthy few.

I sold my pet care business a few months before launching my Congressional campaign; the strict rules regarding what you can use campaign donations for is how I got into tourism.

When I began offering walking tours in my hometown, I learned that some of San Francisco’s earliest inhabitants following the Gold Rush were Italian fisherman. Knowing that the Italian side of my family came from Genoa, I began to delve deeper into my family’s history, and my research resulted in some of the most incredible discoveries I have made in my entire life (so far). Thus, I must correct a couple mistakes I made in the first version of A Real San Francisco Story. With Pets.

The view from my parent’s back porch

In the sixth and final chapter of my book, I claim that I am a fifth generation San Franciscan on my father’s side. In May of 2021 I found out that my great-great-great-great-grandfather Agostino Cuneo moved his family to San Francisco from Genoa in 1865 (five years before San Francisco was incorporated as a city), making me the sixth generation San Franciscan.

In that same chapter, I falsely claimed that one of my great-great uncles was killed during the 1906 earthquake in the collapse of the Palace of Fine Arts; it was the Palace Hotel where my great grandmother’s brother worked as a security guard and he was killed in the collapse of that building. The Palace of Fine Arts was not built until the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915. Recently I learned that the location of my great grandmother’s home was very close to the Exposition’s Tower of Jewels; this structure was the tallest building at the fair and it welcomed you as you entered.

www.ppie100.org

The dedications remain the same, although my gratitude has deepened. This book is dedicated to my ancestors who made it possible for me to live the life I lead today. From the Curry’s who escaped the potato famine in Ireland, the Cuneo’s who immigrated to San Francisco from Genoa, to the Medina’s who escaped a bloody civil war in El Salvador: I come from a long line of fighters, visionaries, entrepreneurs- people who made things happen.

I may never be able to thank you personally but you provided the foundation upon which these pages were built. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

Eric Abraham Curry

September 13, 2022