When did you realize your mortality? That life would end in a blink of history, and what you said may never be spoken again. For the Sansei generation - those of us who grew up after World War II - we came into our young adulthood during the sixties and seventies, one of the most memorable times in American history. And for us, an awakening of our existence as Asian Americans, in a grey world of contradictions. We were proud of our histories in how we survived and contributed to the greater society. We laid criticisms upon the historic racism and economic manipulations that tore down our worlds. But we looked to the future with open eyes because we knew without a doubt, that we would help to better the world. We came to know the truths of our surroundings; sometimes, raging in anger and our disbelief in what we were told. We fought back in the courts, in the streets, in the press, in our classrooms and even in our families. And yet, we never lost sight of our heritage or our identity as the "Sansei" generation.
Today, the Sansei is a dying generation, the last of its kind but the first to take its history as a generation and open it up for discussion. This is the Sansei Legacy Project. It is an effort to preserve through interviews, pictures and stories of what we did. We give ourselves ten years begin in 2010 and finishing as the decade comes to a close. We're now in our 50s and 60s and when we end this project in 2020, we won't all be around.
The idea of the Sansei Legacy Project is to talk stories so that our versions of history told through our personal stories will have a place in the many-faceted realms of the virtual library like YouTube. We hope to also get it down in the old fashion way with ink and paper but like anything else, it'll depend on how much money we can secure. At the end of the day, the objective is to have a resource that provides a well-rounded biography of a generation.
Our goal is to have several methods by which our storytellers will have simple means to record their stories on video. Each story will have a theme and each one will be no longer than five minutes long. As we progress over the years, we can begin to catalog these stories to simplify the contents to the viewers. Shortly, we'll be putting up short lesson plans on doing your own interviews. With the advent of a new generation of video camcorders such as the "Flip" it'll be easier for anyone to shoot their stories. We're pretty sure that most people over the next decade will improve and add to their stories.
Perhaps in the summer of 2020, we'll hold a film festival of the 100 best stories. You'll be invited.
Friday, January 15, 2010
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