This film challenges  the prejudice that silences persons of color and the pride they feel when claiming who they truly are.  In the novel,  Frances E. W. Harper presents multiple scenes where mixed-race Black characters, who might pass as a white, nonetheless reveal that they are indeed people of color. By conducting interviews and blending these with footage of nature around South LA, our film explores the idea of self-love: our gratitude for our environment, our families and being ourselves.  Just like Harper, we hoped to give a perspective from multiple generations (in our case, a grandparent, a parent and a peer) in order to show how racial perceptions and experiences have changed and what they may be like in the future.

Pride & Prejudice: South LA would like to thank our interviewees, Natalio Richards, Celestino Marcial  and Priscilla Calderon.  The film samples from the short fictional piece, Blue Beauty Infected by Dina Villegas, inspired by a dreamscape of Los Angeles students read in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, a work they studied before coming to Iola Leroy.  Full text of Blue Beauty available here.