Anna, a adult literacy instructor at the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, strove to capture the influence of her childhood, New York City apartment building home on her current views on diversity and life in Chinatown of Boston, MA. She began with a very abstract and formal sounding script, but was encouraged by the group to include more of the sensory details of walking through the apartment building as a child, interacting with residents of various ages, backgrounds, and cultures. She also includes some interesting insights on growing up as a first generation Chinese (Cantonese) American. She also struggled to find stock photos to compliment photos of her family and recreated some of the experience by taking photos herself in South End housing developments.
Created during the MassIMPACT Spreading the Stories train-the-trainer workshop at the Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA) and the El Batey Technology Center of the Villa Victoria housing development(May 2007), this story was a part of an effort to bring together staff from community organizations in the South End of Boston and create inter-community connections and fellowship. While the stories in this workshop varied from very personal to place or work based, each participant brought personal touches to each other's stories in the Story Circle and throughout the creation process. [For more info on this workshop, check out Danielle Martin's CTC VISTA blog.]
