Westside Stories: student-made documentaries about San Antonio’s Westside

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines special considerations developed during the implementation of a community-based documentary film project with undergraduate students enrolled in the Media Production II at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. The films created for the course showcased the diversity of Texas businesses and business owners on San Antonio’s Westside, also deemed the Mexican-American cultural capital of the United States (Arreola). The article employs a qualitative case-study methodology to underscore theoretical components of instructional choices used within the project as a way to exemplify the dialogue that occurred between theory and practice in this community. Most notably, these methods illuminated the complications of engaging in community-based documentary work. This article contextualizes the project, location, author’s involvement, and the students’ reactions to give a multi-sided understanding of these nuances. By connecting the project’s genealogy to broader topics including journalism, geographies, the ‘other,’ the article explores possibilities found in conclusions drawn from student feedback around goals of finding story, and working with community partners.