Filmmaker Loni Ding said Asian-American arts have an important role to play in telling the true experience of Asians in the U.S. in her keynote speech to the "Gener-Asians" film series.
"Asian Americans are catching up with their history late. But Asian-American arts have a wonderful role to play," Ding, a veteran independent filmmaker, television producer, university instructor and activist, said.
Ding said Asian Americans still struggle with a foreign image especially in the media. She quoted a story from the Winter Olympic games last year, when a European-American figure skater defeated Michelle Kwan, MSNBC ran a headline, "Americans beat Kwan," despite the fact that Kwan is an American.
Asian Americans "are not exotic or oriental, but they are human," she said.
Ding urged the audience, mostly comprised of Asian Americans, to "go beyond victims' history" and get rid of "shame and guilt" that commonly accompany Asian-American history.
"Much of Asian-American history suffers from stories that have been done, such as discrimination and exclusion," Ding said.
Instead, Asian Americans should always be proud of themselves for their talent and accomplishments, Ding said.
"You have to get past that uncomfort," she said. "The key is to tell stories from inside."
Additionally, Ding said Asian-American studies programs have always been met with struggle. Asian-American history is "hardly fully explored, and has never been put into a public history form," she said.
"No Asian-American study is without struggle. It was born in struggle and lives in struggle," Ding said. She said even recently a student was arrested at the University of California at Berkeley for protesting against the administration for cutting the budget on its Asian-American Study program.
Loni Ding is Executive Director of the Center for Educational Telecommunications. She has nearly 30 years experience of creating programming which appeals to a broad audience. Ding has produced more than 250 broadcast programs for public television and international programs.
Ding teaches media analysis and hands-on production in the Ethnic and Asian-American Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently a visiting professor at the New School for Social Science Research in New York.
The "Gener-Asian" film series introduces seven Asian-American films and five speeches by Asian-American filmmakers and actors.
