California Story Fund
Picturing Californian Ethnoburbs:
Documentary Photography by San Gabriel Valley Teens
Friends of the Chinese American Museum
Los Angeles
Project Director: Pauline Wong
High school students to use photography to document their ethnically diverse communities
Fifteen high school students in southwest San Gabriel Valley will participate in an eight-week workshop to learn how to document their lives and communities.
The workshops will be led by a staff member from Venice Arts, an innovative arts center that brings talented artists together with low-income individuals to nurture their creativity, imagination and talent. Students will also hear from several humanities experts about such topics as socially conscious photojournalism and the practical aspects of selecting and installing photographs for museum exhibits.
“The students will be drawn from the multiethnic communities of San Gabriel, Alhambra and Monterey Park, cities now termed 'ethnoburbs' because of their largely ethnic makeup.
“Our objective is to allow the teens to discover and collect stories important to their lives and communities,” said Project Director Pauline Wong.
An exhibit of the students’ work will be held at the Chinese American Museum beginning summer 2008.