Activist Imagination: exploring and imagining the past, present and future of activism, the arts, and APA communities

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Artists:   Bob Hsiang  Donna Keiko Ozawa  Christine Wong Yap

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Kearny Street Workshop and Manilatown Heritage Foundation present

The Journey So Far: 35 Year of Activism

A discussion with Nancy Hom, Oscar Peñaranda, and Min Paek
Moderated by Alison Satake
an Activist Imagination event

Join Kearny Street Workshop, the Manilatown Heritage Foundation and a panel of activists, artists, and organizers for a compelling, honest, and probing discussion about activism, the arts and community.

The Journey So Far: 35 years of activism takes place Tuesday, November 27, at the International Hotel Manilatown Center, located at 848 Kearny Street, at Jackson. The panel features panelists Nancy Hom, Oscar Peñaranda, and Min Paek, and is moderated by Alison Satake. The discussion, which encourages questions and comments from attendees, will take a look at the last three and a half decades of activism and arts in our communities--what forms has activism taken? what methods have proven effective or ineffective? what lessons can we learn from looking back, and how can we find inspiration for the present and future of engaging in activity that effects real social and political change?

The Journey So Far is part of Kearny Street Workshop's 35th anniversary program, Activist Imagination, a series of conversations with community activists and artists and arts exhibition with visual artists Bob Hsiang, Christine Wong Yap, and Donna Keiko Ozawa.

Date & Time: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 @ 7 PM

Location: International Hotel Manilatown Center, 868 Kearny Street, at Jackson, San Francisco, CA 94108

Cost: Free and open to the public.

The Activist Imagination project is made possible in part by a grant from the Creative Work Fund through support from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the James Irvine Foundation. Activist Imagination is also supported in part by a grant from the San Francisco Foundation and from KSW's members and individual donors.

Above: banner image based on graphic design by Jenifer Wofford | www.wofflehouse.com.

About the moderator and panelists

Nancy Hom is an artist, writer, organizer, and arts administrator with over 30 years of experience in the non-profit arts field. Widely known for her silkscreen artwork, she has created numerous images for community events, political and social causes, and has been a graphic designer and children's book illustrator. She is currently  a freelance curator, grantwriter, and arts consultant for several small non-profits in the Bay Area. Her visual and written work has been published in numerous books and anthologies. In her 30+ years of involvement with San Francisco based Asian American arts organization Kearny Street Workshop, she served as its Executive Director from July 1995 through September 2003. She received a San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant as a visual artist in 1995. She was awarded a Gerbode Fellowship in 1998, nominated for the 1999 Women of Achievement Awards, and received the KQED Local Hero Award in 2003.  She is on the boards of Heyday Institute and the Asian American Women Artists Association, and is an advisory board member of Kearny Street Workshop. She serves on the Community Arts Distribution Committee of the Zellerbach Family Foundation.

A longtime community activist, advocate for ethnic studies in the schools, teacher and writer, Oscar Peñaranda was born in Barugo, Leyte , in 1944. He attended the Philippine Normal School in Manila . At 12, his family moved to Canada , and later relocated to San Francisco , California . At San Francisco State University, Oscar graduated with a B.A. in Literature and an M.A. in Creative Writing. After graduating, he became an activist whose involvement has included participation in the longest-running student strike, which lasted from 1968 to 1969. Since then, he has spent many years teaching in northern California , including Everett Middle School and, more recently, James Logan High School in Union City, California . However, his expertise is not limited to creative writing and English composition, as his curriculum has included the teaching of Tagalog to second-generation Filipinos. Beyond the classroom, his studies in Ethnic and Filipino Heritage has spurred him to lead organizations such as the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) and the Filipino American Educators Association of California (FAEAC). Currently, Oscar has two published works, voicing his passion and life stories called Seasons by the Bay and Full Deck.

Min Paek is the Founder and Executive Director of the Korean American Women Artists and Writers Association (KAWAWA), San Francisco. Min Paek has served on the Taxicab Commission as the General Public representative since April 2003. In 1986, Ms. Paek founded Korean American Women Artists and Writers Association (KAWAWA) and since has been working as an Executive Director. In 1993, she co-founded Korean/African American KAWAWA Intercultural Youth Program with Mr. Lefty Gordon. In addition, she is a moderator of online Korean Studies Discussion List, PhD candidate in Korean Studies Program at Hamburg University, Germany. Ms. Paek holds an M.A. in Inter-Art and B.A. in Conceptual Art from San Francisco State University.

Bay Area local, Alison Lee Satake has worked with various Bay Area non-profit organizations on issues of education, environmental justice, and media for the last seven years.  Most recently, she led workshops and forums for KQED on the complex issues of modern China and U.S. immigration.  An aspiring non-fiction book author, she currently is sharpening her craft at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism (expected M.J. '09).  She received her B.A. ('98) from Barnard College in New York City.

About Manilatown Heritage Foundation

The mission of Manilatown Heritage Foundation is to promote social and economic justice for Filipinos in America by preserving our history, advocating for equal access, and advancing our arts and culture. For more information please visit www.manilatown.org.

About Kearny Street Workshop