A bit about this project:
After seeing another year’s lists of the highest achievers at a young age (“30 under 30”, “40 under 40”), I felt that not enough attention was being paid to a remarkable achievement: being 80 and older. So in 2019, I began to organize people around the idea of talking to 80 people 80 and older to improve the visibility and attention paid to San Francisco’s older adults.
I feel privileged that in my day job as a doctor for people in elderhood, I get to know older people all the time. Now I hope that you will take the time to explore the profiles we have collected. Some people are known nationally and internationally. Some people are your neighbors. We think they are all extraordinary.
Life is in large part luck and circumstance, no doubt. But how we are able to endure these realities can be made harder in a society that does not respect, value, and relish elderhood. We want to contribute a little to changing that through this project.
As this idea got legs, I found many people and organizations that shared my passion and we started looking for people that met our only 2 criteria: being 80 or older and living in San Francisco. It took us almost 3 years to get to 80 people (the pandemic did not help this project’s timeline). We owe a lot to the people who volunteered to make this happen and referred and connected people to us, as well as to generous individual and foundation donors.
We hope you take a listen, look, or read and let us know what you think!
— Anna Chodos, Director
Photo of Janie Bell, 89.
Photographed by Anna Chodos.
Your guide to The 80
In May, Older Americans Month, we released these profiles. They include written, audio and video profiles. We invited interviewees to participate in whatever way they felt comfortable - as such each profile is a little different.
This project is about people and place. We are grouping participants by neighborhood, as you will see. We sought a diversity of backgrounds, abilities, and identities to be representative of our city’s older adults. We interviewed 16 participants who speak a language other than English. Those interviews will be translated and transcripts provided in English or subtitled if videos. We sought to include more people with dementia. Dementia is a cognitive disability that is not considered a normal part of aging, but it affects about a third of people in their 80s and older and so is very common. However, we did not connect with anyone who knowingly had this condition at the time, disclosed this to us, and could participate in the interview.
The questions we asked were to get a snapshot of the person, their recent experiences and their outlook.
It was not a life review or biography. We asked about:
- How people describe themselves
- What they like (or don’t) about San Francisco
- Pandemic experiences
- Advice for others
- Defining moments in their life
- What makes them happy
Photo of Dorothy Quock, 86 by James Q. Chan