The Dreamers and I

Director Statement

While editing and producing many independent documentaries, I supported myself as a freelance editor for companies like Apple, Google and Oracle. In spring 2015, while editing the Apple Watch launch videos, I found the 120-mile commute from my home to Apple headquarters in Silicon Valley unbearable, and through Airbnb, found a cheap place to stay in the heart of the valley – Carlos de la Lama Noriega’s Startup Embassy.

Fifty dollars a night, eight bunks to a room. Unlike the characters in the popular HBO series SILICON VALLEY, almost all of whom were American, 85% of Startup Embassy residents are from other countries. Over time, more than 2000 people from 90 different countries stayed there. At Startup Embassy, I got a rare glimpse into the people in this high-tech United Nations and embedded myself there, hoping to capture their own expression of the American dream.

This story of underdogs persisting in the face of enormous obstacles appeals to me because I am the son of Japanese Americans who spent World War II in an internment camp (essentially a prison). During those four years, they lost everything – farms, jobs, chances for higher education – including my father’s dream of becoming an aeronautical engineer or an artist. After the war, he set those wishes aside and became a gardener. He cautioned me to create a fruitful life by looking out for the unit (family and country) before self. The freewheeling human spirits at the hacker house, who were happily striving for their dreams in the face of the great risks of failure, inspired me to set my own barriers aside and follow my own dream.