The original Kearny Street Workshop (KSW) storefront in San Francisco Chinatown, 1971, located on the ground floor of the International Hotel. At the time, the images produced by KSW's silkscreen and graphics artists were among the first to portray strong and bold images of Asian Americans. The group's work was a hallmark of the Asian American movement on the West Coast but it was also a place "where they felt they belonged," which is how Nelson Nagai described the Yellow Seed, a Stockton organization (see text below).

I Come From a Yellow Seed

By Nelson Nagai

Where in the hell is Stockton? ... If you are Asian American, it is the home of the Yellow Seed, one of the first Asian American community groups to form in the late 1960s.

[In 1969] it was decided that the Asian community needed a drop-in center for youth -- some place where they felt they belonged and an alternative to the pool hall [which had been boycotted because the white owner told Asians to leave the establishment]. So the Yellow Seed Center was born.

Quickly an organization was started around the center. [In 1971] the Yellow Seed received funding for a recreation center to serve the children of Asian cannery workers from the federal government. Our idea was to provide activities for Asian children so that they would not have to run the streets like we did.

We kept kids out of trouble and created jobs for Yellow Seed members who were unemployed. Again, the actual program was derived from practice, not theory.

[01 Transforming Ourselves]     [02 Not Without Struggle]     [03 Serve the People]
[04 Listening to the Small Voice]     [05 The Big Picture]     [06 Revolution]
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