Home  >>  About EthnoCommunications


About EthnoCommunications




The UCLA Center for EthnoCommunications in the Asian American Studies Center was founded in 1996 by Professor Emeritus and filmmaker Robert Nakamura to promote the documentation, preservation, and creative expression of diverse ethnic experiences through the use of emerging media and communications technologies.


EthnoCommunications programs are innovative collaborations among media artists, students, scholars, and communities that advance new approaches to analysis, engagement, and representation of marginalized cultures, peoples and histories.


The Center for EthnoCommunications is comprised of three main components: the academic program, film and digital media production, and campus to community engagement.


Courses in beginning, intermediate, and advanced EthnoCommunications methodologies and social documentary filmmaking are offered annually to UCLA undergraduate and graduate students. EthnoCommunications has trained more than 500 students, producing over 200 films, many of which have been screened in film festivals, universities, and conferences around the world.


The EthnoCommunications instructors/staff have produced social documentaries, such as Manzanar, Pilgrimage, Mr. Lau Goes Herbal: Chinese Herbalists, and The Asian Americans PBS series.


EthnoCommunications have also created several documentary and multimedia projects. Please see the Projects section on the main page.


EthnoCommunications seeks to bridge campus and community through community-based workshops like "Creating Community Media Bootcamp" workshop, and bringing the films and multimedia work into the community at screenings, events, and film festivals.