OACC Latest News

Support the premiere of Francis Wong's Diaspora Tale: #2: 1969

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:09:00 -0700

Support the premiere of Francis Wong�s �Diaspora Tale #2: 1969� this October at OACC!

OACC is proud to announce that we recently received a challenge grant of $5,000 from the East Bay Community Foundation�s East Bay Fund for Artists, to commission Francis Wong to complete and present �Diaspora Tale #2: 1969� at OACC on Saturday, October 17th from 7:30 pm � 10 pm.

�Diaspora Tale #2: 1969� is an interdisciplinary work featuring music by the Francis Wong Unit with spoken word artist A.K. Black and dancer/choreographer Lenora Lee.   �1969� will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the UC Berkeley Third World Strike.

In addition to the performance there will be a short panel discussion about the legacy of the Strike and an exhibit featuring photos documenting the Strike. The Asian Improv aRts, whose mission is to produce, present and document artistic works that represent the Asian American experience, will serve as co-presenter of the work.

Thanks to those of you who have already contributed, we have reached our goal to meet the East Bay Community Foundation's challenge grant of $5,000. We appreciate your support and look forward to seeing you at the concert.

If you have not yet donated, there is still time to contribute. In fact, the challenge grant is part of our larger goal to raise $20,000 through a combination of sponsorships, donations and event ticket sales.
Your contributions will help OACC in the following ways:
1.   Support the creation and presentation of a musical work that documents an extraordinary historical moment that shaped the diverse Asian American experience.
2.   Provide Asian Pacific American (APA) and non � APA audiences with an artistic and educational experience that explores the roots of contemporary cultural identity in the increasingly transnational reality.
You can also donate through our Facebook Causes campaign page which allows you to safely donate online and see our fundraising progress.

If you don't have a facebook account, you can still donate securely through our Facebook Causes page.

For more information about the program, visit http://www.oacc.cc/support-us/donations/francis-wong.html

Poetry in the Kitchen and Heritage Month

Thu, 21 May 2009 16:50:00 -0700

Stories were cooked up and poetry was shared in OACC�s kitchen. Youths and young adults put pens to paper on the large steel prep table. Garlic and soy, the sharp smell of vinegar and fish sauce, lemongrass and the smoothing blanket of coconut milk, the tastes and smells of Iu Mien, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Korean and Samoan lives co-mingled together. It was May 2000 and people were prepping for the Heritage Month Showcase at OACC. And swirling around it all, you�d see poet-trickster Al Robles leading �Poetry In the Kitchen� giving gentle guidance by Talking Story where cooking and sharing meals loosened tongues and the unlocked the creative mind. Co-teacher Penina Taesali would cajole semi-precious pieces of word-art from youths like Richard who would conjure up images of Cambodia on tree-staved streets of East Oakland. The Hipster, Fil-Am Wordster, Poetry-in-the-Kitchen teacher Al Robles has passed on. But his spirit is still alive in May where poets, cooks, drummers and dancers put their food, words and stories on-stage for Asian Pacific Heritage Month at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center.

    Talk Story--the idea of sharing story and food--is the Hawaiian Way, was Al Robles' way, is something that tries to find its home at OACC. Out of the always morphing �South Asian-Asian-Filipino-Pacific Islanders�, out of competing identities, communities and classes, some time is given over for youths, artists, their families and friends to sit together, eat together and shine on-stage in the auditorium.

    Creating Community. In May 2000, it was the metal and brass percussion rhythms and the dance of princesses and warriors of the Southern Philippines performed by students of Danny Kalanduyan's kulintang class. A 70 foot dragon wearing tennis shoes looped and swirled across the auditorium floor carried by students of Corey Chan. Students of Asian Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership (AYPAL) gave a reading of their written works that came out of Poetry in the Kitchen. In 2009, AYPAL once again performs for May's Heritage Month. This year the Korean dance-drumming of Kyoungil Ong the Sahiyar Dance Company are featured as are performances by Jay Loyola and DowneFx. There's a Women Writers Literary Night, the documentary Mosque in Morgantown is on-screen, there's arts and crafts-making and more.

    Back in 2000, with coconut in one hand and cleaver in the other, Al Robles would whack the nut just so, opening it with a crack. Around him in the kitchen, students wrote stories of mothers and fathers at work all day (and night), where language and food is a tie to an old home left behind. Taro was baked in OACC's ovens while mango, papaya and pineapple were carved and plated for the audience of families and friends. Creating Community. In May 2000, students and artists shared and served food for OACC�s Heritage Month Showcase. And each May, in different ways, they'll do so again.

-Gina Hotta,
radio producer, journalist
Apex Express 94.1 FM
www.kpfa.org/apex-express

Seasonal Dishes Culinary Workshops

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:48:00 -0700

Through eight culinary workshops, OACC will celebrate and preserve the oral tradition of the passing on of traditional family recipes. The workshops will focus on traditional food culture based on seasonal and local ingredients and their relationship to cultural identity, health and well being. By celebrating seasonal culinary practices, we hope to connect our audiences back to the traditional cycles of preserving, and cooking and eating. Space is limited. You must register by calling April Kim at (510) 637- 0462.

Scheduled:

May 2, 10:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Fresh Bamboo Soup and Watercress Salad, Laos, by Sokham Senthavilay (She is shown in the photo above teaching last year's class on larb, green papaya salad and sticky rice.)
May 16, 10:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Banh Xeo and Spring Herbs, Vietnam, by Thy Tran of the Asian Culinary Forum and Wanderingspoon.com
June 6, 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Demystifying Chinese Greens, China, by Linh Phu, former Chef at Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco. Please note that this workshop will begin in the grocery stores of Oakland Chinatown to see and talk about the greens and then move to the OACC kitchen. Limited to 10 participants.
July 18, 10:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Riot of Summer Vegetables and Korean Sides, Korea, by Cecilia Hae Jin Lee, author of Eating Korean
July 25, 10:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Green Curry from Scratch, Thailand, Chat Mingkwan, author of The Best of Regional Thai Cuisine and Buddha�s Table-Thai Vegetarian

More workshops will be scheduled in the fall and winter.
For more details, visit our Culinary Workshops Web page.
See our Seasonal Dishes featured on Blog Appetit!

Third Thursdays: Pinay Jazz Concert

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:00:00 -0700

Under OACC's Third Thursdays program, Filipinos for Affirmative Action (FAA) hosted the First Ever Pinay Jazz Concert on April 16. Over 250 attended to watch performances by Josie Canion, Prelude, Ann Marie Santos Andres, Raquel Berlind, Angel Ventura and accompanied by the Art Khu Trio. In the spirit of recognizing accomplished women, FAA honored CEO of ZeroDivide, Tessie Guillermo for her outstanding leadership and contributions not only to the Filipino community, but also for communities of color nationally.

New OACC Board members!

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:33:00 -0700

We are excited to introduce our three newest OACC board members to you:

Ruth Kim is a PhD candidate at UC Santa Cruz and brings to us her experience in education work, including youth issues, curriculum development, and school outreach.

Michelle Sinhbandith is the Business Development Specialist of Entercom Radio- San Francisco (KOIT 96.5, KDFC 102.1, The Wolf 95.7)and has a rich background in multimedia marketing.

Anthony Ng is the Executive Director of the Chinese Newcomers Service Center in San Francisco and brings to OACC many years of experience in fundraising and community organizing.

Semen and White Lace-Review

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:05:00 -0700

What do you expect to see at a show that brings Monty Python to life,
that is part variety show, part burlesque, and part erudite
commentary? You don't expect anything because you can't know what to
expect. Except that when Philip Huang, Public Health worker turned
actor, walks on stage, he isn't going to be reverent about anything at
all, least of all the structure of the genres he's operating in.

In his own words, "there's high-brow, low-brow, and then there's 'no-
brow.'" This is definitely a post-modern performance, where everything
is in doubt -- where it begins and ends, what it's about, what is or
is not "part" of the show, and one which, when it talks about "taking
you places," it means it entirely literally: A quarter of the show
will take place in an industrial-size kitchen. And poop jokes are
aplenty: even before the show starts, Huang has to make sure there
will be no children in the hallway when he leads the audience through
it, conspiring with him in a teardown of the fourth wall, through a
metaphor that is unprintable and definitely enjoyed at the show rather
than made too explicit in this review.

While Huang does a deft job of convincing you that all the scatology
is necessary to his piece, perhaps he won't convince you that the
disconnectedness of his narrative is entirely warranted. There's
definitely much evolution left in this piece, but it has all the
elements it needs for the alchemy to take place. The perfect brew
might need a bat's wing (or inch of tapeworm) less to work but even to
see each incarnation of Huang's work might in itself be the actual
show you are truly mean to watch.

OACC hosts Congresswoman Barbara Lee

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:25:00 -0800

On February 27, OACC hosted Congresswoman Barbara Lee and federal agencies who gave an overview of the Economic Stimulus Package and how this legislation will impact and assist communities in the 9th Congressional District. The packed auditorium was made up of local community leaders, including Councilwoman Pat Kernighan, Councilwoman Jean Quan, and Supervisor Keith Carson.

Oakland Chinatown's Darlene Lee featured in interview!

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:26:00 -0700

Darlene Lee, a member of OACC's community advisory committee for the Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project , is featured on an interview at the New America Media site . She's been working with youth at the Lincoln Recreation Center for the last seventeen years, and has been a tremendous impact on the lives of many teens in the neighborhood. Please visit new America Media's interview webpage for an inspiring story.

Oakland Chinatown Logic Study featured in Oakland Tribune

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:13:00 -0700

The OACC has been collaborating with the CORO Center for Civic Leadership on a Logic Study of Chinatown. During the week of June 23rd, 18 high school youth fellows from around the East Bay conducted interviews of local community leaders and went on an interactive walking tour of Oakland Chinatown led by Wilson Wong and Roy Chan of OACC. The students' activities so far was featured in the June 26th edition of the Oakland Tribune, page A3 and A4 of the Metro section.

The students will present the findings from their Logic Study of Oakland Chinatown at the OACC on Friday, June 27th at noon. This event is free and open to the public. For more information on this community collaboration, contact Roy Chan at (510) 637-0463 or rchan@oacc.cc

http://origin.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_9694627

Karmacy Comes Knocking with Wooden Bling - OACC's Artist in Residence

apex@kpfa.org — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:55:00 -0700

Karmacy could�ve hung it up at anytime. Kiran Belur and Swapnil Shah could of put the beat-based positive South Asian American music of Karmacy on hold. They could�ve taken a shot at The Gold-Bling, the LA business-based hip-hop. �Ten years ago we got real excited about getting signed,� says Kiran, �hopping on a bus and doing the whole tour thing.� But in the ten years or so since the group started, the twin towers fell, Iraq went up in flames and fear walks across the range of homeland security. The ground upon which artists once stood began to shift like never before. �People feel like they can�t make a difference,� says Kiran. But, on Karmacy�s new release Wooden Bling, they wrote a letter to their listeners: �This album is about hope and progress.�
Listening to a Karmacy CD is like a getting an audio tour that--on Wooden Bling--starts by walking in on the end of a recording session. It sets the stage for the roller-coaster ride of lyrics charting the Highs of getting the music just right, to the Lows of having your peers pat you on the back then trip out the door to the next Big Thing, to the Mids of wondering if people ever really change and where your sound�s gonna fit in. But Wooden Bling is a plea to stop, look and listen. �I think everybody needs to question what�s going on,� says Swap. �Americans are really thinking about the negative impact our decisions have had over the last ten years.� Still, in Karmacy�s music, hard-stomping Underground and Bollywood meet and split apart, their musical imprint not filmi but RnB, with background vocals prevailing over synthetica tabla smooth grooves. About the stamp of South Asian sounds on Karmacy? They think about it all the time. �We all contribute,� says Kiran, �it�s very organic. It�s not like we�ve gotta have a tabla here, or a sitar there.� And with another group-member Nimo living in India, there�s plans for a tour there as well.
Kiran and Swap are based in the East Bay and have been Artists In Residence at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, aka OACC. Located in Oakland�s Central District--one of the most, (if not The Most), diverse areas in America--OACC sits in the heart of Chinatown. Still standing after a series of very heavy hard-knocks, the Center is representative of the city�s tough and practical-minded residents; where misplaced dreams too often play out on treeless streets and where you�re lucky if you�ve got a clock-in-and-out gig. Sons of immigrant parents and working out how their heritage plays into the music, there�s a grittiness to Karmacy that makes sense at the Center. There�s a metaphor for this conflict on their first CD �The Movement�. Its� songwriter Kiran explains that Nil (or the Americanized version �Neil�), �is made to help a schoolmate--an immigrant, South Asian girl--who he rejects. It�s only later that he sees how beautiful she really is and learns to appreciate her.�
May�s Asian Pacific Heritage Month 2008 performance was Karmacy�s third appearance at OACC since their first at an API hip-hop show organized by then OACC staff Jason Jong. Now, Mona Shah and April Kim are guiding the Center�s programs with the steady hands needed to inter-lace the conflicting POVs that the words Asian�Cultural�Center conjure up. Bringing Karmacy to OACC opens up doors to a music-driven crowd while broadening outreach to South Asian audiences. And it all comes with the message that you can�t give up. �This music forces us to reflect on our lives,� says Swap. �Every once in a while it comes knocking at your door. It won�t allow you to ignore it. And this time I think we did a good job in answering the door.�

For more on Karmacy: www.karmacy.org. For the radio interview: www.kpfa.org go to Archives, Apex Express, May 29, 2008. Apex airs Thurs. 7-8pm 94.1 FM. Gina Hotta is a journalist, radio producer and past OACC program director. Contact: apex@kpfa.org