| WHAT DOES IT MEAN
TO BE AMERICAN? |
Project title: What Does it Mean to be American?
Recipient Organization: Vietnamese Youth Development Center
Lead Artist: Spencer Nakasako
Genre and Date Awarded: Media Arts, June 2003
To be Completed: December 2003
Filmmaker Spencer Nakasako is collaborating with the Vietnamese
Youth Development Center (VYDC) and Southeast Asian youth to create What
Does It Mean to be American? Filmed from the point of view of
young Southeast Asians in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District,
this film asks how the children of Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian
refugees are growing up in the United States.
Lead artist Spencer Nakasako, through prior collaborations with the Vietnamese
Youth Development Center (VYDC) and other youth agencies, has pioneered an approach
to working with young people that has become a model for other youth media programs.
The project will begin with interviews conducted by youth in the Tenderloin’s
streets, asking the general question “What Does it Mean to be American?” and
transition to the young artists’ more individual perspectives on the topic.
A small number of youth will take cameras home to make personal video diaries,
recording the details of daily living in their homes, posing questions to members
of their households, and recording themselves and their ideas.
In workshops at VYDC, Nakasako and the youth will review and discuss the footage
as it comes in, seeking out the hidden stories to coax out the truths, shadows,
and ambivalences behind a deceptively simple question. He writes, “My approach
to creating documentaries in the Tenderloin allows youth to reflect back what
is important to them in a way they could not talk about if asked directly.”
Spencer Nakasako has two decades of experience as an independent film and video
producer, with credits for a wide variety of community-based videos, documentaries,
and dramatic features, including Kelly Loves Tony, and, with VYDC student
Sokly Ny, a.k.a. Don Bonus. He is one of a small number of artists
to receive two Creative Work Fund grants: through his earlier (1995) project,
he and Tenderloin teenagers created four short documentary and dramatic films, Tenderloin
Stories. What Does it Mean to be American? will be submitted to festivals,
broadcast on public and cable television, and distributed by the National Asian
American Telecommunications Association.
VYDC, founded in 1979 by Vietnamese refugees, provides an array of social
service, artistic, and educational programs to an increasingly diverse population
of immigrant youth from Southeast Asian. The agency’s mission supports and
values young people, promotes their strengths and values, and reinforces the
worth of culture, tradition, and diversity. VYDC began its first video workshop
in the summer of 1989 and today manages a well-equipped and highly-successful
Youth Media Lab.
Spencer Nakasako has two decades of experience as an independent
film and video producer, with credits that range from community-based
videos to award-winning documentaries and dramatic features. Nakasako
is one of the most highly regarded mentors of young media makers
in the country and regularly consults with youth
media programs.
Exhibited and broadcast nationally and internationally, his works
include Life is Cheap…, co-directed with Wayne Wang,
and the documentaries Monterey’s Boat People and Kelly
Loves Tony, both of which aired on public television. His documentary
with VYDC student Sokly Ny, a.k.a. Don Bonus, won a National
Emmy for Cultural Programming in 1994 and the Best Documentary prize
at the 1995 San Francisco International Film Festival. His most recently
completed sixty-minute documentary, Refugee, created with
Mike Siv, also explores the stories of Tenderloin youth. Refugee premiered
in 2003 at the San Francisco Asian American Fialm Festival, screened
at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival and, most recently was
chosen by the Independent Documentary Association as eligible for
an Oscar nomination.
Producer/Director, Refugee, 60-minute documentary. Funded
by the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and National Asian American
Telecommunications Association (NAATA), 2003.
Producer/Director, Kelly Loves Tony, 60-minute camcorder
diary of two Lao teenage refugees. Executive produced by Wayne Wang
and NAATA, 1998.
Producer/Director, a.k.a. Don Bonus, co-directed
with Sokly “Don
Bonus” Ny, 60-minute documentary about life as seen by an 18-year-old
Cambodian refugee, 1992-95.
Field Producer, School Colors, Two and a half-hour documentary
that takes a look at integration, diversity, and multiculturalism
at Berkeley High School. Co-produced by Telesis Productions and Center
for Investigative Reporting for Frontline on PBS, 1996
Producer/Director, Talking History, Half-hour documentary
revealing the history of Asian women in the United States. Produced
for Asian Women United, funded by the U.S. Office of Education, 1984.
Los Angeles Independent Film Festival (Refugee)
San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (Refugee, Kelly
Loves Tony, Talking History)
Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (Kelly Loves Tony)
Sydney Film Festival (Kelly Loves Tony, a.k.a. Don Bonus)
Taos Talking Pictures Festival (Kelly Loves Tony)
Berlin Film Festival (a.k.a. Don Bonus)
Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, (a.k.a. Don
Bonus)
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (a.k.a. Don
Bonus)
New York Video Festival (a.k.a. Don Bonus)
Galway Film Festival (a.k.a. Don Bonus)
Robert Flaherty Film Seminar (a.k.a. Don Bonus)
New York International Asian American Film Festival (Talking
History)
POV Broadcast, PBS National (Kelly Loves Tony, June 1998) (
a.k.a. Don Bonus, June 1996)
Nederlandse Omproep Stitching Broadcast (NOS), The Netherlands,
1996 (a.k.a. Don Bonus)
National PBS Broadcast (Talking History, 1985)
National Emmy Award (a.k.a. Don Bonus)
San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Award (a.k.a.
Don Bonus)
Prix Visions du Reel Award, Visions du Reel (a.k.a. Don Bonus)
Jurror’s Choice Award, Charlotte Film and
Video Festival (a.k.a.
Don Bonus)
Special Award, National Educational Media Network (a.k.a. Don
Bonus)
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