A Critical Mass:
HOPE @ St. HOPE

My name is Flo Oy Wong and I am a Northern California community-based artist and educator. From July 10th to July 14th I was privileged to teach in Anita Russell’s St. HOPE Academy’s PS7 Elementary School summer program. How did this teaching residency come about?
About a year ago, Jane Hill, executive director of the Sacramento Philharmonic, invited me to join the Philharmonic’s Gold Mountain project, which celebrates through music and art the contributions of the Chinese to California. Jane also reached out to Kim Curry-Evans, director of the 40 Acres Art Gallery, for collaborative support. 40 Acres will present a retrospective of my work in early 2007 as a part of the Gold Mountain project. It was decided that I would provide a week-long artist residency with 4 – 6th grade students, who are predominantly African American, at PS7 as a part the school’s summer arts enrichment curriculum. The residency would focus on learning more about Chinese history and culture and California, using art as a means for dialogue and interaction.

To prepare for the residency, the approximately eighteen students read Good Fortune: My Journey to Gold Mountain, a memoir written by my eighty year-old sister, Li Keng Wong, of San Leandro, California. Having read Good Fortune and following an overview by Kim and me, the students were prepared for the week’s activities, which included learning about the Chinese in California, drawing with raw rice and oil pastels, learning to speak and count in Chinese, taking a tour of the historic Delta town of Locke with cameras in hand, and tasting new food.

Beginning on Monday, the children were introduced to early Chinese immigration to California and specifically learned about interrogation at Angel Island Immigration Station, a familiar topic from Good Fortune. On the following days they had 2 art lessons - 1 with raw rice which they used to write their names in English and 1 with oil pastels which they used to draw the ideograms for Gold Mountain, Gum Sa’an, making a finished work of art from their renderings. They had learned that Chinese is written the same but is spoken in different dialects. On Thursday’s field trip to Locke, they listened attentively to Clarence Chu, Gene O. Chan, and Connie King who presented Locke’s history through personal stories and also discovered that Locke schools were once segregated – 1 for “Whites” and 1 for “Orientals.” The children thrilled to the walking tour of historic Locke, led by Gene and Connie, taking copious notes in journals. When they saw the toilet succulent garden in front of Connie’s house they were amazed, having learned that these were the same commodes thrown out of houses by new owners refusing to use them since the Chinese were the previous tenants.

On Friday, the students wrote thank you notes, talked about their experiences, and selected the photographs that will also be on display at the 40 Acres Art Gallery in conjunction with my exhibit. We closed out the week with a party centered on food - a rice and black eye pea salad to symbolize the coming together of Chinese Americans and African Americans in their classroom. When it was time to eat I told them that the taste would be new and if they liked it they could say, “Ho sick,” meaning good taste. If they didn’t like it then they could say “No thank you” and go straight for the cookies. Some did.

All week long, the students were introduced to new cultural concepts. They made decisions and thought critically through the act of creativity. Anita Russell’s excellence as a classroom teacher set the tone for success - promoting respect and listening and encouraging questions and critical thinking. Her professionalism with excellent support from Kim allowed me to do my job.

I am deeply grateful to Jane Hill and the Sacramento Philharmonic’s board of directors, St. HOPE founder Kevin Johnson, Kim Curry-Evans, PS7 principal Marianna Harris, Anita Russell, PS7 summer school students, parents, and volunteers, Alex Eng and the Locke Management Board of Directors, Clarence Chu, Gene O. Chan, and Connie King, a critical mass, for demonstrating that Art Builds Community!

There is HOPE @ St. HOPE Academy, thanks to their solid foundation and the Sacramento Philharmonic’s Gold Mountain project, which brought me to PS7.

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