California Story Fund
Project S.O.S.: Sharing Oakland’s Stories
Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park
Oakland
Project Director: Shannon Petrello
Oakland youths to create digital stories about their experiences with neighborhood violence
A group of eighth grade students at United for Success Academy, an Oakland middle school, are creating three-to five-minute digital stories about their experiences with violence in a special digital storytelling class.
This project is a collaborative effort of Friends of Peralta Hacienda Park, the project sponsor; United for Success Academy, an Oakland middle school; and five humanities scholars: Peter Biella, filmmaker and cultural anthropology professor at San Francisco State University; Linda Norton, senior editor at the Regional Oral History Office, UC Berkeley; Wanda Sabir, journalist and instructor at Laney College; Alex Saragoza, professor of history and ethnic studies at UC Berkeley; and filmmaker Rick Tejada-Flores. Film Educator Shannon Petrello, of the Peralta Friends organization, is leading the project.
With the help of the humanities experts, the youths will explore the roots of the violence, including the history of violence against blacks in the South. Professor Biella will introduce the idea of filmmaking as storytelling, show the students some of his own films, and help the youths plan their own films. Saragoza will help the students understand how they and their families are making history in the way they live their lives and how they have been affected by history across generations; Journalist Sabir will talk to them about effective ways to get their voices heard; Tejada-Flores will discuss filmmaking. Norton will offer insight into the importance to history of first-personal narrative.
The project will conclude with a youth film festival at Peralta Hacienda Park in fall 2009. Youths will also present their films to the Oakland City Council and have a screening at San Francisco State University. The films will be distributed to the Oakland Unified School District, KTOP (Oakland’s public access channel), crime preventions councils, Oakland public libraries and Oakland community centers.
“Our hope is that the youths will develop a vision that goes beyond the violence to find connections to each other, to history, to other generations and to the community,” Petrello said.