Reel Memories is a pilot oral history project dedicated to unearthing and archiving home movies (also known as “family films”) belonging to Asian Americans from the Greater Seattle Area.

Reel Memories seeks to collect and digitize local home movies and record on-camera interviews with family members of donated films. Far from irrelevant, dust-collecting relics as they are often deemed, home movies are invaluable historical and cultural documents of the past that need to be preserved for future generations. Home movies are especially vital to Asian American communities as they help “reframe the historically stereotypical images [...], and bring to light authentic footage of Asian Americans,” to quote CAAM Executive Director Stephen Gong. Reel Memories aspires to continue CAAM’s work dedicated to preserving Asian American histories by creating an archive of Seattle-based home movies and oral histories. This pilot will conclude with a special home movie screening in Spring 2025.