A Japanese-American mother in a World War II-era California internment camp spends hours every day hand-washing diapers and bedspreads for her newborn baby. A father baits the street thief stealing sandwiches from his homeless family with a cockroach-filled sandwich.
And a young man explains how he believes his mother's gold-capped tooth reflects her tough Michoacan heritage.
These stories are among the more than 300 recordings created by county residents as part of “San Diego Stories,” a digital collection of personal and historical narrations.
The project is funded by the San Diego Foundation and organized by the San Diego Media Arts Center, a nonprofit group promoting film and video access to the community.
The arts program, which also organizes the San Diego Latino Film Festival, has established three digital story stations in the county: at the Escondido Public Library, the downtown San Diego Central Public Library and the Chula Vista Public Library. Staff members are working to install story stations across the state, with 24 expected to be complete by next month.
|
Online: To see recordings of “San Diego Stories,” or to sign up to make one, click on
Digital Story Station at mediaartscenter.org
|
|
Volunteers began helping teens create short digital story productions about seven years ago, said Ethan van Thillo, the Media Arts Center's founder and executive director. Two years ago, they expanded their free program to include participants of all ages.
“We believe storytelling and digital stories are a great way to collect a sense of community,” van Thillo said. “You start seeing the story of veterans, stories of the Latino community, and put them in one place, like a library. You get a feeling of diversity. It's a powerful thing to create a sense of community.”
People can tell their stories in a basic recording process that takes about an hour, according to the center's Web site. They can also bring compact discs, records, photographs and home movies to create a more advanced recording.
On-site media artists help people with the technical process, so computer skills aren't necessary. Recordings are uploaded to the program's Web site and copied to a disc to be taken home, said Kathryn Panian, a North Park media artist at the Escondido library's digital station. She often helps people navigate their memories and experiences to prepare for recording.
Panian helped Margaret Estrada Sanchez, a board member at the Escondido Neighborhood Healthcare all-volunteer clinic, tell the story of her family's 1940 deportation from Los Angeles to Mexico in “My (Brief) Stay in Mexico.”
“I find it very satisfying,” Panian said of her work. “It's a cool process, especially helping senior citizens recount stories of events in high school or growing up. It's always interesting. Even if they think they don't have a story, there's always something about their lives.”
Recordings are accessible on the program's Web site, mediaartscenter.org. In “Fred Mendenhall Remembers 'Old Escondido' ” San Marcos resident Fred Mendenhall, 97, sings, “Oh My Darling Clementine” and recalls Temecula cattle drives.
In “Shelzea's Story: La Frontera,” Shelzea Zamora, a San Pasqual High School student, talks about the day her mother, an immigrant from an unidentified country, went to Tijuana to buy a computer and was not allowed to return because of visa complications.
And in “In Honor of Candelaria Maes,” Vista resident Martha Dominguez reminisces about growing up in a coal-mining town in New Mexico. Dominguez, 60, said getting started on her recording was challenging.
“I didn't know what to talk about,” she said. “But once I started talking, choosing pictures, it just became really easy. It all came together, which is funny, because it wasn't rehearsed or anything.”
The retired legal secretary said her daughter, Josie Dominguez, 32, is recording the family's military history, extending back to the Civil War.
“I think it's important,” Martha Dominguez said. “It shows we're all people, and although we're all different, in a lot of ways we're all the same. You see someone every day and don't know them, but yet there's a lot of similarities. We all come from different places. We all have dreams, we all have hopes.”
Emily Vizzo is a freelance writer who lives in La Jolla.
