Dilemmas + Decisions presents real-life issues related to democracy and freedom as experienced and conceived by high school-aged media groups from across the nation.
Students at the Vietnamese Youth Development Center in California question the very meaning of freedom. Does it mean doing whatever you want? Not being locked up? Is it a state of the nation, or a state of mind?
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION After you watch this video essay, we encourage you to engage others in a discussion using one or more of the questions included in the Viewer’s Guide. Download the pdf document by clicking on the icon on the top right side of this page.
Video Essay: Freedom on the Block?
Students explore the definition of freedom by interviewing the ethnically diverse residents of the Tenderloin district of San Francisco who are mostly recent immigrants and refugees.
Launch the video VYDC Video Essay Running time: 6 minutes, 27 seconds File size: 5.58Mb
Behind-the-Scenes
The students of the Vietnamese Youth Development Center in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, CA, introduce themselves and their media program. They talk about their own sense of, and lack of, freedom.
Launch the video VYDC Profile
Running time: 2 minutes, 46 seconds
File size: 2.40Mb
Vietnamese Youth Development Center: San Francisco, CA
The Vietnamese Youth Development Center was developed in 1979 to address the lack of services for Southeast Asian refugee youths. Based in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, the center has grown to serve an increasingly diverse group of refugees and immigrant populations. Since 1989, VYDC has offered video workshops that focus on visual storytelling based on the youths' personal memories and experiences.
