As he toyed with the smartphone in his hands, Jeraldo Lovato Hernandez was focused solely on the device’s performance and function. He had come to the Mission from his Section-8 housing complex off Sixth Street and Howard to get his phone repaired because near his apartment there aren’t any phone repair shops.
“I’ve been here since 1997, but I came here from Seattle,” he said, but by way of a number of cities including Minneapolis, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago.
His phone, an older looking Samsung, had its screen replaced at a nearby mobile phone store near the corners of Mission and 23rd St. at a store which still bore the defunct Radioshack sign on its front facade. Lovato Hernandez got his phone repaired there and was now exploring its functions and settings.
Lovato had traveled around the country, worked at different places and cities but settled in San Francisco.
“There’s a lot of opportunities here, even more than in Los Angeles,” said Lovato Hernandez