NEW YORK. The Asian American community in Forest Hills, Queens, were excited and listened to a presentation about keeping family documents safe by turning videos and photos into digital files. They were really happy to be at the event called Memories In Motion last week, which was held to honor Immigrant Heritage Month. "I have some video recordings; can you help me digitize them?" asked a guest, as he began taking out video tapes from an envelope. Vince, one of the digitizing video experts, who knew a lot about converting videos, replied, "Sure can."
"As June is called Immigration Heritage Month, FHAA & Queens Memory hoped to commemorate and encourage everybody to capture their memories in videos,” said Sandy Liu, President of Forest Hills Asian Association (FHAA) who initiated and organized this event. “Memories are about encoding, storing, retaining, and recalling information, experience, and learned knowledge. They form the bedrock of our identity, making us able to learn and adapt and build up our self. Therefore, memories are universal and unique to all of us regardless of our origins,’" adds Sandy, who currently is active in ONE QUEENS: Fellowship Against Hate supported by Commonpoint, a community centric nonprofit, serving diverse audiences through every chapter of life, across the five boroughs and beyond.
The event became even more special when old family videos were shown on the wall screen. It was clear that about 60 guests at the event were amazed by seeing these old family documentation, which were recorded on 1980’s formats like VHS, and video 8, converted to digital file. At the presentation, the organizer brought in a partner xfrcollective.org, a non-profit group which aims to lower the barriers to preserving at-risk audiovisual media, especially unseen, unheard, or marginalized works through digitization, workshop, screening and pop up events. They came to assist the Asian community learn how to keep their family records safe by digitizing their videos in various types of video tapes including S-HVS, Betacam, Betacam SP, DVCam, HDV, Hi-8, U-Matic, DVD, and DVD-R.
Memories in Motion was organized by 11375 Forest Hills Asian Association, supported by NYC Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, Jewish Community Relations Council for New York and Commonpoint Queens. The event was also attended by Cheryl Zhang, Senior Program Manager representing the NYC Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes (OPHC). In her welcome speech, she mentioned that the Memories in Motion was developed by two fellows Sandy Liu and Faye Yuan as part of the inaugural We Are Queens Fellowship Against Hate through its seed grant initiative. She thanked organizers and participants for building belonging, preserving shared histories and strengthening New York City’s diverse communities.
"I learned from this program by preserving my family's history via photographs which encouraged me to preserve before the photos/video deteriorated. This is also in line with FHAA's goal which is to engage, where we wanted to extend this not only to the Asians but non-Asians in Queens too to fight hate crimes in Queens", said Sandy who has planned to organize the upcoming community events.