California Story Fund
Looking for Hope
Media Alliance
Oakland
Project Director: Matthew O’Brien
An exploration of the public schools, immigration and growing up in inner-city Oakland.
The project combines photographs O'Brien took while teaching in the Oakland public schools with written work by students, offering unique, insider perspectives on urban life and public education in America.
This project began informally in 1996 when teacher and project director Matthew O’Brien began photographing his students at an elementary school in Oakland. The next year, at a different school, he continued photographing, but also began to encourage his students to write stories to accompany the photographs.
So far more than 400 students have contributed written work to the project, most of it collected between 1996 and 2003.
Students have written about their neighborhoods, their families, their fears and aspirations, their immigration experiences, and the differences between their native countries and what they encounter here,
A portion of “Looking for Hope” was exhibited on the UC Berkeley campus, to enthusiastic response. This grant allowed O'Brien to bring the photographs to a wider audience in the Bay Area.
“Looking for Hope” gives these kids a forum to talk about their lives,” O’Brien said.