Last Updated: January 31, 2000
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Susie Ming Hwa Chu
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Making a difference, one photo at a time
By Susie Ming Hwa Chu
ASNE Reporter
It started with an intro black and white course.
I'm talking photography.
I just wanted to take better pictures. I'm tired of the typical
instamatic camera, my photos filled with red eyes, faces out of focus and
telephone poles growing out of people's heads.
But little did I know that a camera would eventually become my icebreaker
to others because, basically, I'm the reserved type. Now my Nikon
FM-2 is my window to the world. It takes me places I would have never
dared to enter. But most important of all, it takes me into people's
lives, minds and hearts. It has become my third eye.
My goal as a photojournalist is not to save the world. What I
most want to accomplish through my photography and my compassion for people
is to help make our world a better place: for children, for women, for
my younger sister and brother, teenagers who I know feel confused, jaded
and angry at times.
I often wonder "Will my photos make a difference, make people
care, make them understand each other?" And other times I think "Will
my photos open people's minds and hearts?"
My answer?
I can only hope. One day at a time. One story at a time. One frame
at a time.
Click.
I'd like to share an image with you.
My family immigrated to Orange County in Southern California from
Bolivia in 1983. I was seven years old. We had hoped to nab a piece
of our American Dream. My parents labored up to 15 hours a day, six
days a week at my grandfather's Chinese restaurant, Chu's Wok Inn, bussing
tables, waiting on customers and flipping five pound woks hundreds of times
a day.
What I remember most during the years that my parents had it
worst was sprinting home from the school bus with the rest of the Georgetown
Apartment kids in Orange, eager to begin our day of activities. We played
baseball with tennis balls in the weed-infested dirt field; once we tired
of baseball or whenever we couldn't settle a call, we'd move on to the
next sport, two-hand touch football.
When we had enough of football, we'd play tree tag, and if we
had more fuel to burn, we'd try our luck sneaking into a nearby gated apartment
complex for a few games of pick-up hoops. We'd play until we couldn't see
the ball anymore or until some of us heard our parents' howling whistle,
our cue for dinner.
Sadly, I don't have many pictures to remind me of my carefree
days frolicking in the grass, building forts, climbing trees and picking
berries with my friends. But those images will forever be in my heart.
Click.
As my photojournalism career has taken form, so has my interest
in sociology and Asian-American Studies at the University of California
at Los Angeles. I've learned the importance of recording experiences. As
a photographer for The Daily Bruin , I've documented events from demonstrations
of protest to demonstrations of human kindness.
Among them, a march where students locked arms in unity as they
held a sit-in in the middle of a street, protesting their disgust with
Proposition 209, the affirmative action initiative.
I've been caught and bounced around in the middle of a frenetic
crowd rushing the court after the men's basketball team pummeled our cross-town
rival, the University of Southern California, again. And as
I photographed an 8-year-old boy beaming ear to ear catching a pass
from a big brother at a Chinatown mentoring program, I was reminded of
my childhood days.
Later, at an internship at the San Francisco Chronicle, I spent
three hours at a beach with 40 inner-city kids from Potrero--for many their
first rendezvous with shells, starfish and seaweed. As we headed
for lunch, out of nowhere, a child's hand clasped mine. At that moment
I realized that if we reach out, they--our kids--will respond. I couldn't
resist. I took my third eye and pointed it at our shadows as we strolled.
I recorded a special moment.
Like a writer who uses words to illustrate a story, I use images
to tell mine.
I write with light.
That's the power of the picture.
Click.
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