VIETNAMESE AMERICAN ARTS & LETTERS ASSOCIATION

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VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS Connecting Communities Through Media Arts May 3, 2018 Gabriela Cramer, Community Development Agency City of Santa Ana 20 Civic Center Plaza Santa Ana, California 92701 Dear Gabriela Cramer, This letter is in support of Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association's (VAALA) application for a Investing in the Arts Opportunity Grant. As a longtime staff member at Visual Communications, a Los Angeles -based Asian Pacific American media arts center, I have had the pleasure to work with members of VAALA with numerous programming initiatives since 1998; and in a mutual organizational relationship since 2002, While Visual Communications' partnership with VAALA in recent years has focused on one of their tentpole initiatives — the Viet FilmFest established in 2003 — I have been excited to experience the varied range of opportunities their members have afforded Vietnamese American and greater Orange County communities to interact and grow through the arts, from children's craft workshops, a regular spoken word/performance cabaret event, management of a permanent space to host art exhibits and gatherings, to cultural events that bring together multiple generations throughout their community. I have observed that this range of activity is always mindful of foregrounding diasporic and traditional Vietnamese arts and culture as a catalyst in the ongoing process of acculturation and meaningful participation in American society. Through these gestures both big and small, VAALA has been and continue to be a force for mutual understanding and empowerment throughout the community it serves. That the organization has accomplished all of this on an exclusively volunteer -run basis — from its regular staff members and its board of directors — is an anomaly in the local non-profit arts community, and an unsustainable situation that necessitated a long - overdue restructuring process initiated two years ago. VAALA's re-emergence after this period of reflection and planning has positioned the organization for sustained, long-term benefit to its community. VAALA's intent to utilize the Investing in the Arts Opportunity Grant to re -activate its Youth in Motion Media Arts Workshops is a key ingredient in their efforts to maintain a lasting impact in their community. In its previous iteration, Youth in Motion was an immersive program that unfortunately proved to be a terminal one, as there had been no infrastructure in place to insure that the final products of those workshops would be brought to a wider audience following its informal graduation/World Premiere screening event at Viet FilmFest. VAALA's plan to involve as many youth groups and individuals as possible through its other tentpole activities as Common Ground and VietRISE, as well as through aggressively seeking out screening partnerships with a variety of community-based youth and community organizations clearly informs me that VAALA recognizes the importance of making media arts available to all. The content of works typically produced in past editions of Youth in Motion — from identity, family relationships, to taboo topics as elder abuse and sexuality —will now have the chance to impact a wider range of youth artists and audiences alike, as VAALA plans more direct and long-term civic engagement through Youth in Motion. I am heartened that the fruits of this vital community program will not be a dead-end film festival screening. Instead, the possibilities of community -building through the creation and sharing of cinema are traits that will distinguish this new and improved edition of Youth in Motion. This is an edition that I wholeheartedly support and endorse for funding support, so that its objectives are met and even surpassed. I offer you my wholehearted recommendation of Vietnamese Arts & Letters Association's application for a Investing in the Arts Opportunity grant, and hope that you will look favorably upon VAALA's application. If you wish to discuss my recommendation of this worthwhile project further, please do not hesitate to call me directly at (213) 680-4462 x25 during weekday hours. Sincerely, Abraham Ferrer Visual Communications 120 Judge John Atvo Street, kiovmenl I I. os Angeles,(A 90012 I v:213 680 1462 1 Info(3vmn1!ne.orc{ I evvw.vc,)Nine nig