How I See It: Youth Digital Filmmakers
“My Reality and My Vision: Stories from Long Beach”
Khmer Girls in Action
Long Beach
Project Director: Suely Ngouy
Filmmaker: Mar Elepaño
Humanities Scholar: Karen Quintiliani, California State University, Long Beach
Khmer young women and girls, ages 14 to 18, will create a film exploring the refugee experience of their families and how they see their own place in Long Beach now and in the future.
Long Beach is home to the second largest population of Cambodians living outside of Cambodia and is often referred to as Little Cambodia or Little Phnom Penh. More recently, various community and civic groups have led efforts to officially designate a stretch of the Anaheim Corridor as Cambodian Town.
“The older generation seeks to replicate their homeland in Long Beach by creating Cambodian Town, while the younger generation seeks to assimilate into mainstream America,” said Project Director Suely Ngouy, Executive Director of Khmer Girls in Action. “The young filmmakers will interpret theses themes of connection and disconnection using a feminist lens and will construct a community portrait using interviews from that perspective.”