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Memories to Light

Preserving the power of  home movies and collective memory brings to life the historic, lived experiences of Asian American communities from across the country

A car passenger films directly into the side-view mirror, where their hands and camera can be seen in both the main mirror, and a smaller mirror within– providing a warped

$1M Boost to Support the Preservation of Asian American Home Movies

A generous grant from the Mellon Foundation will support CAAM’s Memories to Light initiative that digitizes and archives Asian American home movies and makes the footage available to filmmakers and the public. Over five years, this investment will help us build our infrastructure and financial resiliency to sustain this critical audiovisual archive.

Since its inception in 2013, CAAM’s Memories to Light has preserved footage from over 50 families, spanning the 1920s to 1980s and currently including Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese backgrounds. Since nonfiction media representations of Asian Americans from this era were rare, these community-sourced videos are crucial to recording this history that is an inherent part of the U.S. experience.

This infusion of funding will start CAAM on the process of strengthening its infrastructure to meet the influx of content that will be forthcoming as the community seeks to archive the more prolific media from the late 20th century, and as images from the mid-20th century recorded on 8mm, Super 8, and 16mm film formats are at increasing risk of deterioration and loss over time.

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Featured Home Movies

The Gee Family Collection
A young Chiense-American boy wearing roller skates stands on a suburban sidewalk, making his way to his mother, who faces him, also wearing roller skates.

The Gee Family Collection

“The Gee family of Sacramento was your typical nuclear family living in Suburbia. Mom. Dad. Son. Daughter. Occasionally a pet fish. Dad worked for the government (it IS Sacramento after all), Mom worked as a nurse at UC Davis. Son and Daughter studied hard, took piano lessons, enjoyed summer break playing in the back yard. Being a tech geek (in the 1970s), Dad bought a movie camera and was able to document our lives.”

“The treat of the year was our summer vacations, where we’d all pack into the van and drive across the country for an adventure. We ended up at a lot of national parks as you can see. Today, Daughter Lynda lives in the family house. Mom and Dad live a few blocks away. Son Brian lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Being a tech geek (in the 2010s) he follows his dad’s footsteps and constantly documents his family’s lives with his iPhone.”

-Brian Gee

The Koura Family Collection
In a snowy winter

The Koura Family Collection

Recently acquired and uploaded to Prelinger Archives in 2026, this collection of 8mm film, shot between the 1940s to early 60s, showcases the Koura family, who owned a strawberry farm on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

The footage is predominantly shot by Arthur “Art” Koura, who became legal owner of the family farm at 18 years old on behalf of his parents, as the state’s Alien Land Law prevented them from owning property being Japanese-born. Art and his family were later uprooted, along with countless other Japanese Americans, and taken to concentration camps in Manzanar, California during WWII. Following the war, they were able to return to their farm, which was left in the care of a trusted friend. By the 1960’s, the Koura family farm, at 188 acres, was the largest strawberry farm on Bainbridge Island. The Koura family footage was donated to the Memories to Light collection by Art’s daughter, DyAnne Kanazawa Middaugh.

The Bohulano Family Collection
Two Filipino/a members of the Bohulano family, stand before a glass-paned shelf containing what appears to be shining metallic cutlery and silverware. A middle aged woman with glasses holds a baby girl in center frame, looking at her endearingly. An older man to the right of frame also looks at the baby with a smile.

The Bohulano Family Collection

In 2023, the Bohulano Family collection was one of twenty five films selected for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry, chosen for its cultural and historic importance to the nation’s film heritage and its contribution to authentic Asian American narratives.

“My family’s history is inextricably linked with the history of Filipinas/os in Stockton, California […] My family’s home movies, which date to the mid-1950s, record the many family gatherings […] The movies in the 1960s and 1970s record community events, family gatherings, weddings, baby and wedding showers, trips to New York and Washington, D.C., and Atlantic city, my family’s emotional return visit to the Philippines in 1967, the funerals and family gatherings of my grandfather Delfin in 1976 and my grandmother’s brother the same year in the Philippines, and the births and childhoods (and dance recitals!) of the third generation in the 1970s.”

-Dawn Bohulano Mabalon

Memories to Light: An Inside Look

In February of 2013, we brought cameras to the Internet Archive and spoke with CAAM’s then-Executive Director, Stephen Gong, and Antonella Bonfanti (then-Historian for Prelinger Archives) about Memories to Light and the film scanning process.

Get a closer look at how – and why – Memories to Light and partners at Prelinger Archives transfer Asian American home movies to digital.

Play Video
On a ship, a crew of six Japanese American fishermen pull in a wide net while standing upon a pile of boueys and rope.
Japanese American members of the Sasaki family (mother, daughter, and young son) stand upon a dry, grassy hillside, gazing to the right of frame to take in the scenery. They are backed by rolling hills and a sunny sky with clouds.
An Asian American teenage boy with shoulder-length hair looks into camera, wearing a yellow tank top and eating a snack out of a plastic bag.
Led by their grandfather, a very young boy and girl hold hands and make their way out of their front door, walking down a Victorian-style staircase. A man and women behind them, likely parents, follow out the door. All members shown are Chinese American.
In a strawberry field, a middle aged Japanese American man wearing glasses looks down proudly at a bitten strawberry in his hand.
A smiling Chinese American mother with sunglasses sits besides her son. Both look directly at camera, with Oakland's Lake Merritt behind them in the background.
An older brother and younger sister (both Chinese American) look at each other, standing in the living room in front of a colorfully-lit Christmas tree and wrapped gifts. The boy holds a stocking in his hands.
A portrait-style image of a Japanese American woman, holding a bouquet of wild flowers above her head, with scattered shadow overlaying half of her face. She wears a colorful dress and shawl and stands in front of a natural rock wall.
A shirtless Japanese American man, facing away from camera, cautiously approaches two massive black stallions that stand within a fenced, grassy plain. The man's wife, daughter, and son can be seen watching, very far away in the background.
A Chinese American man with glasses looks into camera, with groups of people behind him sitting on a grassy hill and a nearby bench. The young man in-image is CAAM's past Executive Director: Stephen Gong.
A Japanese American teenage girl stands in tall grass accompanied by a younger boy. She holds a blade of grass and, with hands together at her mouth, blowing into it to produce sound. The younger boy looks down at his own blade of grass curiously. A black cow stands in the distance, grazing the lush rolling hills.

See All That Memories to Light Has To Offer...

Memories to Light Collection: Internet Archive via Prelinger Archives Memories to Light Collection: California Revealed Memories to Light on YouTube

For inquiries regarding the collection, interest in donation, or licensing footage, please contact memoriestolight@caamedia.org. Thank you!

 

 

An Asian American man shoots film, looking into the camera with one eye.