Oakland Ilokana - Film Screening & Cultural Preservation Workshop

Oakland Ilokana follows a 90-year-old Filipina American grandmother Marie Rivera Yip — one of the first Filipino children born in 1930s Oakland — as she reflects on a lifetime shaped by migration, community, and resilience. Her stories become a bridge across time and place, carrying the weight of a family’s legacy and revealing the untold histories of a community finding its place in America. Seen through the lens of her granddaughter Elenita — a filmmaker tracing the threads of their shared past — four generations of Bay Area Filipinas come into focus. The film explores displacement, cultural inheritance, and the enduring power of memory to connect us across generations, across place, and across life itself. After the film, Elenita will lead a step-by-step tutorial on memory work and cultural preservation. Drawing from her experience with library archives and tools, she will guide participants through practical ways to document, safeguard, and share their own family narratives for future generations.