By By Leonel Sanchez
March 15, 2004
When asked to come up with an idea for a video last year,18-year-old Blanca Romero suggested doing something on the rising rents in Sherman Heights.
After all, it had forced her family and others to move out of the predominantly Latino San Diego neighborhood. The result was "Donde yo vivi" (Where I used to live), one of several youth-produced short videos that will be screened Wednesday at the 11th annual San Diego Latino Film Festival in Mission Valley.
The videos have been packaged into half-hour programs called Tu Voz TV (Your Voice TV) and will eventually be distributed to San Diego-area schools and community groups.
The youth video project is one of eight Communities Speak projects across the state that were funded up to $75,000 each by the nonprofit California Council for the Humanities to produce storytelling activities.
Tu Voz TV has been incorporated into Media Arts' Teen Producers Project, a 3-year-old program that has provided training to more than 300 youths, mostly from disadvantaged communities, in video production, computer art and the Internet. Workshops funded through grants are held at sites throughout the county.
Tu Voz TV focuses on stories that have been underreported or not reported at all by mainstream media, said Ethan van Thillo, director of Media Arts Center San Diego, which oversees the teen project and organizes the Latino Film Festival.
Those stories include "Un soldado Mexicano" (a Mexican soldier), about U.S. Marine Jesus Suárez del Sólar who died during the war in Iraq, and "La Donacion de la Ambulancia" (The Ambulance Donation), about a North County Mexican immigrants group's successful efforts to get an ambulance donated to its home town in Mexico with help from the mayor of Vista.
Azucena Mora, 18, said working on the ambulance video helped her see that people in Vista cared about Mexico. "People should know about that," the Vista High School senior said.
Romero said she and her family moved from Sherman Heights to the Mercado Apartments in Barrio Logan more than a year ago because they couldn't keep up with rising rents in their old neighborhood. She said she's thankful for the opportunity to focus attention on the housing issue in Sherman Heights.
" I'm still involved. That's still my community. I'm still doing a lot of organizing," said Romero, who is active with the Sherman Heights Youth Center and DURO (Developing Unity through Residence Organizing).
Media Arts will screen two episodes of Tu Voz TV at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Madstone Theaters in Mission Valley. A special screening for students will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
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