Jayam Rutnam is a Sri Lanka born American and the founder of the Sri Lanka America Association of

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...

(SLAASC) in 1973. Jayam is retired from his

shipping Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it has been ...

business and currently involved as a

film critic Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outl ...

and journalist. Rutnam is an

associate producer A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...

of the film '' The Road from Elephant Pass'' which was a Finalist Award Winner at the ''New York International Television and Film Awards - 2011''.New York Festivals - 2011 World's Best Television & Films Winners
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Biography

Jayam is the fifth son of Dr. James T. Rutnam and a brother of film maker

Chandran Rutnam Chandran Rutnam is a Sri Lankan filmmaker and entrepreneur. Rutnam has hosted numerous Hollywood films for their location shoots in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. He was the Line Producer/Production Supervisor on several international productions incl ...

. Jayam immigrated to Southern California in 1963. His eldest brother, Raja, was the first Sri Lankan immigrant to the United States, which was in 1958. He is married to Gina, an

Italian-American Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, ...

and has daughter Aliki and son Jean-Louis and two grandchildren by the former.

Sri Lanka America Association of Southern California

Jayam Rutnam with San Gabriel Valley Examiner

Jayam founded the Sri Lanka America Association of Southern California (SLAASC) in 1973 to serve the Sri Lankan community in

. Jayam started SLAASC with seven other Sri Lankans when there were only about 1,000 Sri Lankan immigrants in the Southern California, though the number has risen to 65,000 in 2010. Jayam was instrumental to keep all Sri Lankan expatriates together in Southern California so that they had a place to go for social activity. He could be credited by helping people who did not have enough money to survive and made funeral arrangements for those who had nobody in Southern California by his SLAASC.

References

External links

Imprinting Lanka on the world map

by Jayam Rutnam

Meet Jayam Rutnam
- Boston Lanka Radio {{DEFAULTSORT:Rutnam, James Living people American film critics People from Los Angeles Sri Lankan emigrants to the United States 1942 births Journalists from California

Biography

Sri Lanka America Association of Southern California

See also

References

External links