Sound + Fury + Action:
An Evening of Activist and Labor Actions

In a special program presented in conjunction with L.A. Freewaves, Visual Communications will offer a series of works spotlighting working peoples' struggles, and the issues that serve as a catalyst for progressive organizing.

As part of the evening, Visual Communications will preview excerpts of its ongoing Asian Pacific American Labor Project, which is slated for a 2003 premeire.

PROGRAM:

GRANT AVENUE by Joyce Lee
This short video documentary follows several elderly, low-income Chinese tenants as they fight their eviction from San Francisco’s Chinatown district during the Bay Area’s biggest housing crisis during the dotcom boom of 2000/2001.

 

RESILIENCE by Betty Yu
Love and labor intersect in this short documentary in which the director essays the impact of sweatshop conditions on her family’s life. "Resilience" captures the director’s mother Sau Kwan, an immigrant garment factory worker from Hong Kong. After joining the Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association (a Chinese immigrant workers center), Kwan becomes a passionate leader in the movement against inhumane sweatshop conditions in the United States. Her courageous spirit has inspired many other workers to also stand up and fight the rising tide of exploitation in the community and beyond it.

WINNING THE WAGE WAR:
The Market Workers Justice Campaign
by Jessica Kim, Anthony TJ Lee, and Hyunja Pak
Produced by three UCLA student activists, "Winning the Wage War" chronicles the nascent political empowerment of immigrant supermarket workers who stage a walkout of their jobs at Assi Supermarket in Los Angeles Koreatown over substandard wages and oppressive working conditions. The resulting fight for unionization and respect by the workers draw upon an increasingly multi-ethnic coalition advocating for immigrant workers’ rights, and offers a mix of both triumphs and setbacks in this struggle that continues to this day.

PLUS:

A work-in-progress excerpt from the upcoming Visual Communications production GRASSROOTS RISING, a planned hour-long documentary profiling a trio of immigrant workers and their growing sense of political activism in a multi-ethnic Los Angeles.

A component of Visual Communications’ "Remapping L.A." exhibition series, "The Monthly Screen" is supported by the California Arts Council, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. "Monthly Screen" engagements are free to the public. For additional program information and to RSVP, call (213) 680-4462 x58; or visit Visual Communications’ website at www.vconline.org

@ Visual Communications
Nov. 12, 7:30pm