Youth Advisory Board 2008-09
MOCA's Youth Advisory Board (YAB) is comprised of a group of committed New York City teens who want to engage with Chinese American history, have a voice in their community, and develop teen programs and activities at the Museum. Weekly workshops provide an out-of-classroom learning experience where students are thinking creatively, building leadership skills, practicing public speaking, and documenting their experiences through multimedia technology.
2008-09: Voices of Young Chinese America
In 2008-09, the YABers participated in an intensive training on Chinese American history and culture in the fall and a digital storytelling workshop in the spring.
Watch their final projects:
THE FILMS
Extra Mixed in the Melting Pot by Thalia bloom
Gentrification of Chinatown by Eric Cheng
Great Expectation by Alison Cheu
Rich Phoenix by Katrina Lee
Untitled by Angeline Lim
Untitled by Jessica Tan
Pressure by Thomas Weng
THE FILMMAKERS
Thalia Bloom is a senior at LaGuardia High School. After the YAB workshop, she interned at MOCA's new location during the summer. She has learned a lot about the museum's place as a staple in New York City's history, as well as learning about her own Asian American identity as a verbose half-Chinese.
Eric Cheng is a freshman at New York Institute of Technology where he majors in Architecture. He aspires to ameliorate his Chinatown neighborhood by providing strong architecture and urban design as well as spreading awareness of his community’s needs through his work in MOCA’s docent program. Eric recently graduated from Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction in Manhattan.
Alison Cheu is a rising senior at Bard High School Early College. Besides enjoying long walks in the city, Alison is a prolific learner of history (when she wants). She is currently in a struggling relationship with sociology.
Katrina Lee is seventeen years old and has been working with MoCA since the summer of 2008. She will be attending The University of Maryland this fall and looks forward to becoming a Maryland Terp. She has lived near Chinatown her entire life and it is her most frequented childhood hangout. She is pursuing a career in business management, but she will continue to make movies in the future.
Angeline Lim is a tenth grader student in Singapore and was in New York for the last 9 months. She thinks that one should be able to make his/her own decision responsibly because he/she is going to live her own future. At MOCA, Angeline had a great experience working with every YAB member and learning about different stories than her own.
Jessica Tan is a freshman at Drexel University where she majored in Business and Engineering. She loves volunteering and traveling. At the YAB workshop, she had a great time learning about Chinatown’s diverse culture and the long history of Chinese Americans. She also created a short film about her own immigration experience.
Thomas Weng currently attends Trinity School. He wants to thank MoCA for letting him explore a little bit more the world his dad saw when he first arrived as a young man.
THE FACILITATORS
Dylan Yeats is a doctoral student at NYU who has worked with MoCA in the past. He thinks it's healthy to wrestle with our personal and national histories, and that we need to do so together. He finds it quite a thrill to encourage and assist youth in communicating the stories and ideas that matter to them.
Iki Nakagawa is a filmmaker who lived in the Lower East Side for twenty years. She makes and teaches film because it is her way of relating and getting to know the people. She enjoyed listening to YAB’s stories, relating to their stories and questioning all of us why and how we tell such stories. She documented the process from a teaching artist's perspective. Read about it here.
The Museum of Chinese in America’s Youth Advisory Board is made possible by the generosity of the Liu Foundation, with additional support provided by the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Institute at New York University.
