Postcards from Socal: Radio Manila

Socal Connected’s web-team kicks off their weekly series, “Postcards from Socal,” with a visit to Radio Manila’s studios in Eagle Rock. Eagle Rock has the largest Filipino-American community in the greater Los Angeles area and Radio Manila is a community service station that connects Filipinos living and working in the United States and abroad.

This postcard is connected to kcet.org’s “Departures,” a web-based, multi-media documentary series about neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

Eagle Rock Boulevard is known for its mixture of vintage small businesses and hipster hot spots near Occidental College in Northeast LA.

During Fall semester, Occidental College students in Professor Katie Mills’ documentary theory class (ArtF 343 “The Poetics and Politics of Documentary Film”) studied the ethics and aesthetics of filmmaking by leaving the classroom and going to nearby Eagle Rock Boulevard. There, each student selected locals - over fifty people altogether - to tell stories about the past and present of the boulevard.

This complex portrait of a neighborhood in transition features the people found in the area’s small businesses and coffee shops, on the bus, in the bowling alley, in the Philippine Village and the Presbyterian Church.

Locals were interviewed at Auntie Em’s, Don’s Music, Owl Talk, Swork Coffee, Sir Michael’s, Cleanomat, Harut’s Shoe Repair, Transport Skate Shop, Hubert’s Barber Shop, Eagle Rock Presbyterian Church, Señor Fish, Read Books, ER Underground, The Bucket, Cactus Gallery, Psychic International, Evil or Sacred Tattoo, All-Star Lanes, MTA line 84, Philippine Village, and Super A Market.