Overview

"You can’t write about a world if you don’t study it, and the best way to study it is to live in it."

Leila Mottley

In a love letter to the Bay Area, two teenage artists spend a day in creative and community fellowship.

HELPFUL CONCEPTS:

gentrification – The socioeconomic process whereby people who are of a higher income level, education-level, and/or racial make-up move into lower-income neighborhoods and cause increased rents and prices, changes to community character and culture, and the departure of many long-term residents, many of whom are people of color

intersectionality – a term coined by scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw that highlights the overlap between forms of oppression based on multiple identities (e.g., race and gender)

FILM PARTICIPANTS:

Leila Mottley and Ajai Kasim – two Oakland teenagers who share a love of writing and music and spend their time exploring their city and creating art together

NOTE TO TEACHERS:

This assignment invites students to explore their own identities and creative forms of expression. Writing in this way can be an intimate exercise in vulnerability, so it is important that you have established a safe, non-judgmental, and respectful learning environment. Remind students that writing and being creative is sometimes a risky task and that they should be encouraging and supportive of one another.