During the past year, poet Giles Lee set out to tell a fictionalized account of recently retired Chinese-born basketball star Yao Ming.<\/p>\n
Acting in the persona of Yao, Lee recites a fictitious retirement speech to show how the American media always seemed to focus on Yao’s ethnicity as a Chinese basketball player during his nine years with the Houston Rockets rather than his skills on the court.<\/p>\n
Today, Lee is one of the growing number of amateur filmmakers in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood working to show how stereotyping has limited and miscast the Asian-American community in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have a preconception of who we are based on what we look like,\u201d Lee says. \u201cThey have trouble imagining we have our own distinct personalities.\u201d<\/p>\n
His film, \u201cThe First Draft of Yao Ming’s Retirement Speech,\u201d recently premiered at the third annual Boston Asian American Film Festival. It was joined by others, such as “Wear I Fit,” a story about self-image and clothing, which explored issues of ethnicity and understanding in American society.<\/p>\n
For Lee, it’s a theme central to his work year-round as director of programs at the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. He and others at BCNC work with Asian-American youth to produce films that not only help with their technological skill sets, but also help them forge a clearer identity as Asian-Americans in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s important we take matters into our own hands using digital storytelling,\u201d says BCNC Director of Youth Programs Sophia Kim. \u201cWe are telling who we are from our own perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim finds it annoying, for example, that American pop culture regularly characterizes Asian-Americans as Kung-Fu fighters and restaurateurs. At the BCNC Youth Center, Kim is helping to teach students to combat film with film, alongside teaching editing software like iMovie.<\/p>\n
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\nhttp:\/\/www.boston.com\/yourtown\/news\/downtown\/2011\/12\/chinatowns_digital_storyteller.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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