Living Literature Colors United Program

Just about everybody in the housing project knows about it. Grandparents 2,000 miles away will be watching. Cousins and aunts will come to see them off, snapping photos like on prom night. "My mother is telling everybody in the project to come out here at 3 p.m. and watch me get in the limo," Cynthia "Queeny" Turner, who lives in the Imperial Courts housing project, said with a laugh. "She is so happy. She can't wait. You know how mothers are."

Just about everybody in the housing project knows about it. Grandparents 2,000 miles away will be watching. Cousins and aunts will come to see them off, snapping photos like on prom night. "My mother is telling everybody in the project to come out here at 3 p.m. and watch me get in the limo," Cynthia "Queeny" Turner, who lives in the Imperial Courts housing project, said with a laugh. "She is so happy. She can't wait. You know how mothers are."

For years Michele Ohayon was a shadow. With cameras rolling, Ohayon followed six young people from Watts, filming them in school, in their homes and, in one case, in jail. The result is "Colors Straight Up," a moving documentary that tells the story of their lives and dilemmas. Early Tuesday morning, four years after embarking on the project, Ohayon received the call every filmmaker yearns for: The documentary has been nominated for an Academy Award.

For years Michele Ohayon was a shadow. With cameras rolling, Ohayon followed six young people from Watts, filming them in school, in their homes and, in one case, in jail. The result is "Colors Straight Up," a moving documentary that tells the story of their lives and dilemmas. Early Tuesday morning, four years after embarking on the project, Ohayon received the call every filmmaker yearns for: The documentary has been nominated for an Academy Award.

By the time fuzz began to grow above Oscar Sierra's lip, he says, he already was a veteran gang member, an arranger of drug deals and an organizer of "ditch" parties for his classmates in his neighborhood in Watts. He'd been shot in a drive-by shooting that sent a bullet into an arm. "In my neighborhood, it wasn't a question of whether you were going to be involved in a gang," he said last week. "The only question was how deeply."

The Korean Youth Center is recruiting Korean-American youths to participate in a multiethnic theater arts program at Jordan High School in Watts. "This kind of activity can help to break down the walls of prejudice that exist among all youths today," said Bong Hwan Kim, executive director of the Korean Youth Center. "The future of the Korean-American community lies in building relations with the diverse communities of Los Angeles." Students in the nonprofit Living Literature/Colors United Inc.

By the time fuzz began to grow above Oscar Sierra's lip, he says, he already was a veteran gang member, an arranger of drug deals and an organizer of "ditch" parties for his classmates in his neighborhood in Watts. He'd been shot in a drive-by shooting that sent a bullet into an arm. "In my neighborhood, it wasn't a question of whether you were going to be involved in a gang," he said last week. "The only question was how deeply."