Theresa Wong’s Artist Statement

Flatlands is a short film portraying the landscape of West Berkeley and the hidden history of Asian discrimination from both the 1800s as well as the redlining policy of the 1930s. Filmed mostly from the San Francisco Bay Trail pedestrian bridge crossing the I-80 freeway, the footage alternates between an eastward view looking towards the city and hills, and a westward view towards a fog laden bay. A voiceover reads the texts of area descriptions and racist language documented in the U.S. government's Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) redlining policies. Drawing upon the research of Berkeley resident and historian Richard Schwartz, the film also focuses on the construction site of the Berkeley Commons, located on the former site of the Standard Soap Company, where Chinese laborers were unjustly fired in favor of white workers in 1879.