Leba Hertz
Saturday, March 26, 2005
All five are children or young adults with five different life stories to tell. Yet, all of these budding photographers have something in common: They are from immigrant and refugee families. Beginning next month, their work will be on exhibit at San Francisco Exposure Gallery and the San Francisco Public Library.
Ghita Riane is an emancipated 19-year-old from Morocco. Yaroslav Malev, a 13-year-old born in Ukraine, plays the saxophone. Armel Mampouya, 15, is from the Congo and plays soccer and the ngoma, a Congolese drum. Shahid Mirapara, a 17-year-old from India, is a starting pitcher at Mission High. Jan Tancinco , a 14-year-old Filipino-American, sings soprano with a youth choir that performed in Italy and Austria in 2003.
Sponsored by California Council for the Humanities and New California Media and mentored by Rick Rocamora, the five took photographs of events that they could relate to.
Riane, who arrived in the United States in 2001 to help care for a cousin's daughter, found herself in the foster home system but received her emancipation -- legal permission to live as an adult -- in December. She is working two jobs while she studies for her high school degree. Her work focuses on her emancipation.
Malev, an eighth-grader in the Presidio Middle School, devoted his photography to his neighborhood: the Tenderloin, where he lives with his parents and sister. He also loves math and does volunteer work for various youth organizations. He hopes to study computer technology.
Mampouya, a freshman at Albany High, waited four years before he could reunite with his father Jean Mampouya. The would-be music producer decided to concentrate his photos on his new American family, which includes his godparent's family, his father's co-workers and the Congolese community.
Mirapara has many interests. He won the 2003 National Poetry Slam, he has a solo pilot license and when he was 9 he invented a toy that has brought in more than $2 million in sales. His project was just a day-to-day experience of a high school student and his neighborhood.
Tancinco, who attends Burlingame Intermediate, is a history and math buff who aspires to be a broadcast journalist. She also does volunteer work and dedicates her project to her family life and visits to the Philippines.
Eyes of New California runs April 1 through 30 at San Francisco Exposure Gallery, 801 Howard St., San Francisco, and the concurrent exhibit at the library runs April 1 through May 31. For more information, check the Web site, www.californiastories.org.
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