Project Title: Oak Park Stories
Recipient Organization: New Hope Covenant Church
Lead Artist: Valerie Soe
Genre and Date Awarded: Media Arts, June 2006
To be Presented: 2009

Media artist Valeria Soe is collaborating with New Hope Covenant Church and Russell Jeung to create Oak Park Stories, a 60-minute documentary recounting the story of low-income immigrants who, in 2000, won a landmark legal settlement. The film will look at immigrants overcoming tremendous odds both in their native countries and in the United States.

The Oak Park Apartments in Oakland—home to large numbers of non-English-speaking tenants, many from Mexico and Cambodia—had become dilapidated, infested, unhealthy, and unsafe. The tenants seemed to be at the mercy of their landlord. Through efforts of New Hope Covenant Church—a faith-based institution located adjacent to the apartment building—a tenants coalition formed and ultimately was awarded in court $1 million in damages from the landlord.

Oak Park Stories will recount the journeys of three families who came to live at the low-income apartment complex. The Kongs arrived in 1983 from Cambodia, where they had to flee forced labor camps and invading Vietnamese soldiers. A few years later, Felix Jimenez brought his family across the Mexican-United States border without documents and struggled to earn a living as a day laborer. At the same time, Dan Schmitz left the comforts of his white, suburban upbringing and moved into the apartment directly below the Kongs, pursuing plans to create a Protestant ministry.

Together, these three households encountered daily life in America’s underclass. Parents raised their children amidst drug dealing, gang violence, and prostitution right at their parking lot. Yet, their worst problem was their housing. After unsanitary conditions led to the hospitalization of several children, 44 of the households banded together to undertake the lawsuit. Oak Park Stories depicts the moving struggle of how this multiethnic community forged better conditions for themselves against all odds.

Lead artist Valerie Soe is a videomaker and artist whose work focuses on issues of culture, identity, and political empowerment. Her productions include Mixed Blood, an interactive video installation dealing with interracial relationships; Picturing Oriental Girls: A (Re) Education Videotape, an experimental video about representations of Asian women in mass media; and ALL ORIENTALS LOOK THE SAME, a short experimental video that belies the title phrase. Through this project she seeks to give voice to a community too often unheard in the media.

Artistic collaborator Russell Jeung is a fifth-generation Chinese American with a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. He co-founded a community-building ministry in the Oak Park housing project, living in the same conditions as the neighbors there, experiencing the same hardships of racism, poverty, and neighborhood violence; and ultimately playing a key role in organizing the tenants.  Like Soe, he is on the faculty of San Francisco State University’s Asian American Studies Department.

In its mission, New Hope Covenant Church aims to “strengthen families and households, celebrate one another’s cultures, and seek justice for the oppressed.” The church, which is located directly in front of Oak Park Apartments, continues to host tutoring, ESL, and youth organizing programs for the tenants.

The main characters of Oak Park Stories are all associated with New Hope. Tenants and tenant-organizers from New Hope will actively participate in production of the documentary—contributing their stories and determining the focus and themes. Youth at New Hope have been involved in several of their own video projects as part of their summer youth organizing efforts. They are volunteering and helping with this project to learn more video-making skills, document their families’ stories, and express their own vision of the neighborhood.

LEAD ARTIST

Valerie Soe

Awards and Commissions

• Nominee, Rockefeller Foundation Film/Video Fellowship (2004)
  
• Artist’s Commission, The Exploratorium, San Francisco (2002)
  
• Creative Work Fund grant for collaboration with Ruth Asawa Fund (1999)
  
• Artist’s Grant, Art-in-Print, Public Art Works, Marin County (1999)
  
• Eureka Fellowship, Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco (1998)
  
• Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize, New Langton Arts, San Francisco (1997)
  
• Artist’s Grant, Serpent Source, Foundation for Women Artists (1997)
  
• New Visions: Video Production Grant, Long Beach Museum of Arts (1997)
  
• Artist’s Residency, Centrum Foundation, Port Townsend, Washington (1997)
  
• GOLDIE, San Francisco Bay Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery (1997)
  
• James D. Phelan Art Award in Video, San Francisco Foundation (1995)
  
• Residency, Djerassi Foundation, Woodside, California (1995)
  
• Artist’s Grant, Cultural Equity Grants, San Francisco Arts Commission (1994)
  
• Artist’s Equipment Access Grant, Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco (1994)
  
• Individual Artist’s Project Grant, LACE and New Langton Arts (1994)
  
• Artist’s Fellowship, Art Matters, Inc. (1994)
  
• Veronica di Rosa Residency, Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin County (1994)
  
• Best Bay Area Short, Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco International Film Festival (1993)
  
• Pioneer Fund Documentary Film/Video Grant, San Francisco (1993)
  
• Intercultural Film/Video Fellowship, Rockefeller Foundation, New York (1992)
  
• Market Street Art in Transit, San Francisco Arts Commission (1992)
  
• Director’s Choice, Image Film and Video Festival, Atlanta, Georgia (1992)
  
• Individual Artists Project, Art In Public Places, University of Washington and Washington State Arts Commission, Seattle, Washington (1991)
  
• Artspace Video Production Grant, San Francisco Artspace (1991)
  
• Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowship, Rocky Mountain Film Center (1990)
  
• Personal Works Grant, Film Arts Foundation, San Francisco (1989)
  
• First Place, Experimental Category, Sony Corporation Visions of U.S. Festival (1988)
  
• Honorable Mention, Experimental Video, 12th Atlanta Film and Video Festival (1988)
  
• Best Foreign Video, Festival Internazionale Cinema Giovani, Torino, Italy (1987)
  
• Third Place, Experimental Category, Sony Corporation Visions of U.S. Festival (1986)
  
• Regional Finalist, Student Video Competition, American Film Institute National Video Festival, Los Angeles (1986)

Videography and Selected Exhibitions

• “Carefully Taught,” 4 minute experimental video (2002)
  19th Kassel Dokumentarfilm & Videofest; 2002 Denver International Film Festival; 15th exground filmfest Wiesbaden; Festival International de Vidéo Expéerimentale, Images Contre Nature; Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival; Dallas Video Festival; Asian Cinevision Film Festival; Ladyfest Bay Area Film Festival; Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival; Dallas Video Festival; Black Bear Film Festival, Milford, Pennsylvania; Women With Vision, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Chicago Asian American Film Showcase
  
• “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” multimedia installation with Glenda Egan Drew (2002)
  The Sense of Colour, Queens University, Sussex, UK; Seeing, The Exploratorium, San Francisco; Asian Pacific Heritage Month, National Asia American Telecommunications Association; 2004 Dallas Video Festival
  
• “Mao Redux,” 30 second experimental video (2002)
  Past/Forward, Visual Communications 30th anniversary; 2004 San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival
  
• “Each One Teach One: The Alvarado School Art Program,” 23 minute documentary (2002)
  Co-Lab, Creative Partnerships & Learning, San Francisco State University; An Afternoon with Ruth Asawa, Oakland Museum of California; 18th Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema; Odd Mondays, Noe Valley Ministry, San Francisco; 2003 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival
  
• “Selective Memory: Valencia Street,” 7.5 minute experimental video (silent) (2002)
  Asphalt Stories, Oakland, California; Mission Memories, The Lab, San Francisco; schematics from a memory grid, Intersection for the Arts’ 40th Anniversary; Other Cinema
  
• “Workers of the World, Unite!,” 2.5 minute (1998)
  Give & Take: Artists & Youth in Dialogue, Art Source, San Francisco; Faculty Screening, California State Summer School for the Arts; TILT Benefit, Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco
  
• “Beyond Asiaphilia,” 14 minutes (1997)
  One-Person Shows, Pacific Film Archive, San Francisco Cinematheque; Video in Vancouver; New Visions: Video, Long Beach Museum of Art; Stories by Boys and Fables by Girls, 1997 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival; It’s A Man’s Man’s World, Seattle Asian American Film Festival; San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival; Chicago Underground Film Festival; Women in the Director’s Chair; Dallas Video Festival; Other Cinema
  
• “Binge,” installation (1995-96)
  Feed, San Francisco Camerawork; Building Bridges, Crossing Cultures, Hearst Art Gallery, St. Mary’s College, Moraga, California; “Muses,” Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, California; Open House, Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin County
  
• “Walking the Mountain,” 2:30 minutes (1994)
  Festival Gala, Film Arts Festival, San Francisco, California; Asian American International Video Festival, Asian CineVision, New York City; Rooms for the Dead, Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco; Poetry Video Festival, San Francisco
  
• “Picturing Oriental Girls: A (Re) Educational Videotape, 12 minutes (1992)
  Best Bay Area Sort, Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco International Film Festival; When Worlds Collide, Museum of Modern Art, New York; ’93 Images Film/Video Festival, Toronto, Ontario; KCET-TV, Los Angeles
  
• “Mixed Blood,” 20 minutes (1992)
  New World (Dis)Order, Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco; National Women’s Museum of Art, Washington D.C.; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington; KCSM-TV, KQED-TV, San Francisco; Free Speech TV
  
• “Heart of the City,” installation (1992)
  Bring the Noise, 1994 Asian American International Film Festival; Market Street Art in Transit Program, Art of the City Farmer’s Market, San Francisco
  
• “Cynsin: An American Princess,” 10 minutes (1991)
  Director’s Choice, Image Film and Video Festival, Atlanta, George; WOW Women’s Film and Video Festival, New York, New York
  
• “Destiny,” 6 minutes (1991)
  Asian American Film and Video Festival, Visual Communications, Los Angeles; VCR Videos: TV Pirates, San Francisco Cinematheque
  
• “Diversity,” installation (1990)
  One-Person Show, Sushi, Inc., San Diego; One-Person Show, The Women’s Building, Los Angeles; Official Language, McBean Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California
  
• “Black Sheep,” 6 minutes (1990)
  Asian American International Video Festival, Asian Cinevision, New York; Nasty Girls, Other Cinema, San Francisco; Freewaves from J-Town, Visual Communications, Los Angeles; KQED-TV, KTVU-TV, San Francisco
  
• “New Year, Parts I & II,” 23 minutes (1987)
  The Feminist “I,” Video Programs from the Women Make Movies Collection, The Brooklyn Museum, New York; In Living Color: Race and Civil Rights, American Film Institute Video Festival; Videos da San Francisco, Museu da Imagem e Do Som, Sao Paolo Brazil; Avant-Garde Film Festival, Inkel Audio World, Seoul, Korea
  
• “ALL ORIENTALS LOOK THE SAME,” 1:30 minutes (1985)
  Best Foreign Video, Festival Internazionale Cinema Giovani, Torino, Italy; First Place, Experimental Category, Sony Corporation Visions of U.S. Festival; Honorable Mention, Experimental Video, 12th Atlanta Film and Video Festival; Through the Lens, WYBE-TV 35, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New to America, The Learning Channel; Best f The Territory, KRLU-TV, Austin, Texas; VideoArco International Contemporary Art Fair, Madrid, Spain; Tracking On, Cable Channel L Working Group, Manhattan Cable; The Forbidden Self, Capp Street Project/AVT, San Francisco; Free Speech TV