Block by Block: The Struggle to Bring Community College to San Francisco Chinatown

Join us for a screening of Block by Block: The Struggle to Bring Community College to San Francisco on October 12th, from 3:30 to 5:00 PM at 370 Dwinelle Hall! The screening will be followed by a Q&A.

A new 30-minute film, Block by Block, directed by Kevin Wong and Seng Chen, presents the many obstacles laid out by San Francisco big money and political powerbrokers, as they waged a public relations war to stop the construction of a community college campus in Chinatown. In response, with equal determination fueled by a sense of outrage and betrayal, a broad and diverse coalition, Friends of Educational Opportunities in Chinatown (FEOC), organized rallies, radio/TV/newsprint and petition campaigns, educators, students, non-profits, labor unions, churches, and family associations to fight for community self-determination. All these forces collided in a climatic vote shown in the film. Block by Block provides audiences the opportunity to explore and learn who gets to decide land use for a historic community, what are the role and responsibilities of professionals — designers, planners, attorneys, advocates —  and directly impacted students and neighborhood residents, and how a low-income ethnic minority community can win against overwhelming odds.

Film interviewees include a community college student organizer, social justice activists, a community college administrator, an urban planner, and the special legal counsel to the City College of San Francisco who were all involved in the struggle.

This event is sponsored by the Asian American & Asian Diaspora Studies Program, and co-sponsored by the Asian American Research Center, the Asian American Political Activation Program, the Asian Pacific American Student Development Office, the Berkeley School of Education, and UC Berkeley Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies.