In 2002, the Center for EthnoCommunications entered into a partnership with the Little Tokyo Service Center to establish the Downtown Community Media Center (DCMC) and to develop a comprehensive community-based media documentation and training program. This marks the beginning of a permanent and far-reaching “campus to community” program that is Phase II of EthnoCommunications’ long-range plan to create media service/learning bridges into our local communities of color, directly serving these communities through emerging media technology.


DCMC’s goals are to:

  1. -Increase awareness of the need for ethnic communities to document and preserve their histories and cultures in order to reclaim their past, redefine their present and revision their future.


  1. -Develop strategies to preserve the first-voice perspectives of Asian Pacific Americans and to make them accessible through an innovative and integrated program of visual documentation and public access.


- Engage students and community members in the successful execution of these visual documentation strategies and programs by creating opportunities for the use of emerging media technology to directly serve the community.

DCMC’s most recent media project is A Song for Ourselves, a documentary on the role of the arts of activism in the early Asian American Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Currently, DCMC is completing a comprehensive visual life history project of Asian Americans in Los Angeles. DCMC projects have been funded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Center for Community Partners, and the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program.

The Downtown Community Media Center also documents community events in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. Some recent events include: "Unlearning the 'American Pacific': A Symposium on Anti-Colonial Pedagogies," Little Tokyo “Rally for our Community,” Obon Celebration at Senshin Buddhist Temple, Anti-War and Support Lt. Watada Candle Light Vigil and March in Little Tokyo, the 2007 Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, and numerous visual life histories on community people.


Click on event to play video:

LITTLE TOKYO REC. CENTER VIDEO (2006) 9 MIN.LT_Rec_Center_Video.html
MARCH RAIN (2003) 5 MIN.March_Rain.html
TOFU FESTIVAL (2005) 3 MIN.Tofu_Fest.html

Center for EthnoCommunications, UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 3229 Campbell Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095

E-mail: ethno@aasc.ucla.edu     Phone: 310-206-8889    Fax: 310-206-9844