Staff Spotlight: Meet Gary San Angel, a Media Specialist featured in Corky Lee’s Book on Photographic Justice

Gary San Angel is a Distance Education Operation Specialist in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences (PPHS) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. He joined USC 12 years ago to build a studio for the online distance education program at the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI). He set up a panoramic green screen creating a unique studio space at USC. This year, San Angel was featured in a book titled Corky Lee’s Asian America featuring a collection of photos taken by the late renowned photographer and activist, Corky Lee. Lee celebrated the history and cultural impact of Asian Americans through photography championing social justice movements. Read about San Angel’s time at USC and his relationship with Corky Lee.

How did you meet Corky Lee?

In the 90’s, there were not many positive images of Asians in general in the media, especially Asian men. While living in New York City, I led a writing/performing workshop called Peeling the Banana where everyday people came together to write our own stories at a time when the narrative was not representative of our communities. We gathered teachers, social workers, and community organizers, to explore what it meant to be Asian men. I invited Corky to a workshop where he offered to document our process through photography. At the end, he took a group photo of us. It was a powerful statement to have a group of intergenerational Asian men photographed together defying stereotypes.

Can you tell us more about Corky Lee’s book?

This book was Corky’s dream— he wanted to have a collection of his work, but he never lived to see it. He passed away at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City’s Chinatown, where he was photographing the community’s response to anti-Asian violence. He was one of the few activist photographers who documented 50 years of Asian American history. He did such inspiring work. In 2014, Corky recreated the “Golden Spike” photograph celebrating the first transcontinental railroad—this time including the descendants of the Chinese railroad workers at Promontory Summit in Utah. The Chinese laborers were never represented in the original 1869 photograph. He called these acts “photographic justice,” using his camera as a weapon to fight injustice.

After Corky’s passing, his brother asked me to share the photograph that he took of us at the workshop.  We didn’t have social media back then so the ability to have this documentation showed that we mattered in the framework of Asian American theater. We were able to tell our stories in a way that people weren’t doing back then. Today, I have the privilege of being part of this amazing anthology of his work—which has been profiled on The New York Times Book Review.

What does Corky Lee’s legacy mean to you?

I would love to continue to teach film photography to the next generation and inspire more Corky Lees. Recently, I just finished restoring an 80-year-old Kodak 8×10 camera, the same type of large format camera used to take the Golden Spike photograph. The process has taught me that we can learn so much by slowing down. I bring the analog process to the digital studio all the time now. As much as we automate things to try make them easier and faster through AI, old technologies can remind us of the importance of being human and the importance of forming personal connections to our students.

Can you share more about your professional background?

I used to be a performer and a director and to make ends meet I paid the bills doing technical theater work as a lighting engineer and stage manager. Later, I found academia a perfect fit. I worked as an audiovisual technician at the University of Pennsylvania and later at Drexel University. I have always been technology oriented but more importantly, I have always centered people and learning. It was through these experiences that I found my niche working in distance learning.

What is the role of the Soto Studio at USC?

Our primary role is serving the Master of Public Health (MPH) online and residential program. We are the main site for educational green screen recordings at the Health Sciences Campus with the ability to conduct live streaming, interviews, and podcasting. We can connect anyone around the world to our studio through Zoom. It has been a privilege to be given the stewardship of this studio to allow it to grow and meet the needs of our program.

How does your background relate to your work today?

In theatre it’s important to connect with your audience. Here in the studio, I realize my role is making sure the professor feels like they are making a real connection to the students through the camera. I subliminally use my acting and directing abilities to coach faculty through their recording sessions. The key is being a good listener, knowing what my objective is, and ensuring we have an engaging lesson.

What are your main responsibilities?

PPHS faculty come to me when they need professional recordings of their lectures. I collaborate with our instructional design team to build out courses for the MPH program. I am also in charge of recording and managing the Heritage Provider Network (HPN),  continuing medical education (CME) program led by Associate Vice Provost for Online Learning Shubha Kumar, PhD, MPH. This certificate program works with hospitals around the country, where participants complete various courses on critical diseases like diabetes and heart failure. I also provide recording support for our PPHS communications team. Additionally, I work with the SC CTSI to record its programs related to workforce development and its KL2 Scholar Training Program.

Who do you work closely with?

My colleagues include Diler Yuksel and Warren Watkins, who provide seamless instructional design support to our faculty, and Brian Erwin who handles the back end support of our work  incredibly well. Beth Wellman is our amazing manager of instructional design and delivery. We are a very lean team and I learn something new every day because our work is constantly changing.

What do you enjoy about your job?

It’s the people. I feel very fortunate to have built strong working relationships with many staff and faculty. I’ve connected to their research and been able to support and cheer them on. It excites me to know that I’ve been working with the same people since I first started. Through the challenges, there’s been a support system where we bootstrap each other to succeed. I am grateful for the people I work with every day.