SF-1190 Documenting the Immigrant Experience
DOCUMENTING THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE explores documentary film, photo essays, art, and podcasts as well as their potential to connect students with the immigrant communities of Boston through hands-on production experiences. Students in groups will connect with local immigrant communities for a series of story-sharing sessions. The story-sharing will not take the form of interviews, but rather a reciprocal exchange of personal narratives. Through the process of filming or recording these encounters, we will generate the raw material for a final documentary, art-project, photo essay or a podcast. The class will culminate in an art festival featuring student work and ending with a discussion. The festival aims to raise awareness among students and members of the community about the potential of cultural spaces for social transformation. At the same time, the class will experience and discuss the aesthetic power of documentary film, art, photo essays and podcasts. The class aims to discover and celebrate the shared humanity of the project participants. A premise of the class is that immigrants that rarely have ownership over decisions about how their stories are represented in their own municipality, and that by elevating their stories they will become more engaged in the community and less vulnerable. In the words of professor Theater Gates, we will "bring in the idea of beauty as a basic service to the community." The connections with the Boston community members will be established, through connections with Boston Family School, Boston High School, and Boston Community Television, among others. The first meeting between the students and community member will take place in-class. During this meeting, students and community members will get to know each other through story circles, reciprocal interviews, etc. After this initial meeting, the students are expected to be self-motivated in maintaining contact with the Boston resident and arranging a schedule for interviews and filming. All equipment that we will use during the semester will be from the university, students don't need their own equipment or any prior training. Key concepts and issues that will be focused on in the class include: raising visibility through art of groups of people (local immigrant communities) whose cultures are often not so visible; the revolutionary power of both listening to and remembering each other's stories; facing the "Other"; how stories can aid in the reconstruction of the self, the creation of identity, and how they can lead toward reconciliation. Through the art projects, we hope to explore people's connections to their roots, their families and spirits; open ourselves to the possibility of imagining a different life; and link people's journeys toward better lives with their deepest spiritual impulses.