VIRTUAL REALITY

By Camron McDonald Novato High School

The Team: Top, left to right: Jaliyah Cook, Sarah Williams, Dominiq Austin, Camron McDonald, Raymone Reed and Tayana Bland. Bottom left to right: Brenda Lara, Bella Lucky, Mykolas Vilatis, Mason Le and Briana Zuniga.

Scaling Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Curriculum In California Public libraries

A WAY OUT OF NO WAY

The Lost Stories of Marin City Workers at the Marin Shipyard during WWII Joseph James, Rodessa Battle, Annie Small and Rev. Leon Samuels

Behind every winning team is a support system — often it is mightier than a lion’s roar. In early December 8th, 1941, our country joined the second World War on the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked. In three-and-a-half years, Marinship built and launched fifteen Liberty ships, sixteen fleet oilers, and 62 tankers, all of which were much larger than a football field, totaling 93 ships. These vessels helped the United States in their WW II victory. Marinship workers were a group of dedicated people — both black and white, men and women, who spent day and night building ships. However, the black workers of Marinship were given half the union benefits that whites had. Women weren’t credited for their hard work in welding. Outraged by this inequality, Joseph James spoke up and became the voice behind the echo. His leadership inspired a change within the worker’s union. Joseph James made sure that black workers were given the same benefits as whites and were treated equally at Marinship.

I learned about the untold stories of four African American workers participating in a Writing, Sound & VR project that enabled us to read and retell these stories. We named the project “A Way Out of No Way.” The project was composed of three separate tracks: Storyboard, Music, and VR modeling. As a writer, one strives to be openminded and original. Writing is a difficult art form and I like that it can always be improved. The choice of words and the way they are phrased is the base of any draft in a project. Having more than one draft can be stressful on the writer, but it is good for the final product of the story. The storyboard team wrote several drafts for monologues, dialogues, and narrations. This was no easy task. Sometimes drafts were too long, too short, or had false information. However, each draft could be revised into something much stronger and impactful.

We assisted the music team by researching household objects such as furniture, ice boxes, telephones, and daily life in Marin City in the 1940s. We learned the black community in Marin City was very tight. Neighbors would help each other by watching over each other’s children, doing simple favors, and treating one another like family. This research allowed us to provide reference for the characters; how they talked, how they felt, and how they lived, all to give the audience an authentic sense of life working in the Marinship. The music track faced lots of difficult work including mixing, engineering, and editing vocals of everyone who stepped foot into the studio. The music track began by coming up with catchy lyrics which rhyme and tell a little about the characters and the things they had to face. One of the songs made by the music track is called “Wonder Women Workers” and is about all the women that worked in Marinship. The song itself focuses on Annie Small and Rodessa Battle who worked on the shipyard and were residents of Marin City.

While working in the studio, we had to break through the nervousness of coming face to face with the mic. Creating a music track, we had to patiently wait for the writers to revise narrations, monologue, and dialogues. In less than two weeks, most drafts were finalized and ready to be brought to the studio.

The VR track acted as the anchor within the project. The participants in VR first began by learning the Blender software which has some confusing mechanics to people new to 3D-modeling, animation, and simulation. The VR team became familiar with Blender by making simple objects such as furniture, vehicles, and welding tools. The animations for the final product couldn’t begin without the completion of the storyboard and the recorded voiceovers for the dialogue, monologue, and narrations. Although the class was a bit challenging, its group members were able to easily become accustomed to the tasks at hand and proved computer science can be fun and entertaining. The experience was definitely a very unique one. Along with hard work and fun we learned a lot about history and working together.

The black workers of Marinship were given half the union benefits that whites had.