Films

Asian Americans (PBS series – 5 one-hour episodes)

Asian Americans is a five-hour film series that delivers a bold, fresh perspective on a history that matters today, more than ever. As America becomes more diverse, and more divided while facing unimaginable challenges, how do we move forward together? Told through intimate and personal lives, the series will cast a new lens on US history and the ongoing role that Asian Americans have played in shaping the nation’s story. Teacher’s guide and lesson plans included.

Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story (2024, Jennifer Takaki)

For 50 years, Chinese American photographer Corky Lee tirelessly documented the celebrations, struggles, and daily lives of Asian American Pacific Islanders. Determined to push mainstream media to include AAPI culture in the visual record of American history, Lee produced an astonishing archive of nearly a million compelling photographs. His work takes on new urgency with the alarming rise in anti-Asian attacks during the Covid pandemic. This film’s intimate portrait reveals the triumphs and tragedies of the man behind the lens.

Asian American Stories of Resilience and Beyond (2024)

A series of seven shorts that reflect the complexities of Asian American experiences. While Asian Americans have faced a double pandemic of COVID-19 and anti-Asian racism, the rise of solidarity efforts within Asian American and other BIPOC communities gives us moments of joy, resilience, and hope as we rebuild our lives. The series of seven documentary shorts moves beyond the pandemic and reflects the complexities of Asian American experiences in this critical moment.
Shorts included:
Recording for Dodie (2022, Director, Frances Rubio. 9:16 mins)
The Lookout (2022, Director, JP Dobrin, 10:01 mins)
Malditas (2022, Director, Bree Nieves, 10:02 mins).

Not Your Model Minority (2022, Jon Osaki, 30 mins)

An award-winning documentary, Not Your Model Minority explores the myth and the intersections with past and present anti-Asian violence. The film reveals the ways the model minority myth has been used to create a wedge between communities of color, while also examining opportunities to build power towards addressing systemic racism in America.

Minding the Gap (2019, Bing Liu, 90 mins)

A documentary by award-winning Chinese-American filmmaker Bing Liu, Minding the Gap studies three young men who were bonded together to escape volatile families in their Rust Belt hometown. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship.

The Donut King (2020, Alice Gu, 90 mins)

An immigrant story with a (glazed) twist, The Donut King follows the journey of Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy, who arrived in California in the 1970s and, through a mixture of diligence and luck, built a multi-million dollar donut empire up and down the West Coast. 

Exciled (2022, Dr Pollie Bith-Melander, 41 mins)

Exiled is an ethnographic film on the deportation of Southeast Asian Refugees. Directed by Brian Cimagala, the 40-minute documentary is based on Dr. Pollie Bith-Melander’s 2019-2020 research project, Exiled Once Again. It explores the myriad struggles of Cambodian refugees as they survived the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge, relocation to the U.S., and navigating the criminal justice and immigration systems. 

The Lookout (2022, JP Dobrin, 10:01 min)

New Year Baby (2006, Socheata Poeuv, 80 mins)

New Year Baby is a 2006 documentary film that tells the story of a family that survived the Cambodian genocide and started a new life in the United States. The film, directed by Socheata Poeuv and produced by Charles Vogl, won the 2007 IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) “Movies that Matter” Award, an initiative of Amnesty Internationa, as well as eight other international awards. It was aired on National PBS in 2008. Trailer is available on YouTube.

Enemies of the People: Investigating the Cambodian Killing Fields (2009, Rob Lamkin, Thet Sambath, 90 mins)

In Enemies of the People the men and women who perpetrated the massacres – from the foot-soldiers who slit throats to the party’s ideological leader, Nuon Chea aka Brother Number Two – break a 30-year silence to give testimony never before heard or seen. Unprecedented access from top to bottom of the Khmer Rouge has been achieved through a decade of work by one of Cambodia’s best investigative journalists, Thet Sambath.

Seasons of Migration (2008, 2-episode series, by John Bishop, 56 mins and 38 mins)

Seasons of Migration (56 min) is a documentary about Sophilene Cheam Shapiro’s four part classical Cambodian dance about the stages of culture shock. It blends the dance with commentary about the music and choreography, and personal stories of emigration and culture shock from Cambodian-American residents of Long Beach, California (the largest Cambodian city outside of Cambodia).

Also included on this video, a second video (38 min) presents the complete dance, shot with multiple cameras. The dance is interesting for its use of a classical vocabulary to address contemporary themes. It was produced by John Shapiro of the Khmer Arts Academy.

The Storm Makers (2014, 2-episodes, 118 mins)

More than half a million Cambodians work abroad, and a staggering number of those become slaves. Many are young women, held prisoner and forced to work in horrific conditions, sometimes as prostitutes. A chilling exposé of Cambodia’s human trafficking underworld, The Storm Makers weaves the story of Aya, a young peasant sold into slavery at age 16, with that of two powerful traffickers (known as “storm makers” for the havoc they wreak) who use deception to funnel a stream of poor and illiterate people across the country’s borders. French-Cambodian filmmaker Guillaume Suon presents an eye-opening look at the cycle of poverty, despair and greed that fuels this brutal modern slave trade.

Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir (2021, PBS, 99 mins)

The story of the author whose first novel, “The Joy Luck Club,” was published to great commercial and critical success. With the blockbuster film adaption that followed as well as additional best-selling novels, librettos, short stories and memoirs, Tan firmly established herself as one of the most prominent and respected American literary voices working today.

Far East Deep South (2020, Baldwin Chiu and Larissa Lam, 73 mins)

Charles Chiu and his family’s search for their roots takes them on an eye-opening journey through the Mississippi Delta, uncovering otherwise unknown stories and the racially complex history of Chinese immigrants in the segregated South. This Chinese American family’s unforgettable story offers a poignant and important perspective on race relations, immigration and American identity.

The Six 六人 (2020, Arthur Jones, 102 mins)

When the RMS Titanic sank on a cold night in 1912, barely 700 people escaped with their lives. Among them were six Chinese men. Arriving in New York with the other survivors, the six were met with suspicion and slander. Less than 24 hours later, they were expelled from the country, and vanished. What became of them? In an epic journey that crosses continents, an international team of investigators sets out to discover who these men really were, tracing their origins and tracking down descendants denied access to their history. The Six is an extraordinary story of survival and dignity in the face of racism and anti-immigrant policy that still reverberates today.

Chinatown Rising (2019, Harry Chuck, Josh Chuck, 120 mins)

Against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-1960s, a young San Francisco Chinatown resident armed with a 16mm camera and leftover film scraps from a local TV station, turned his lens onto his community. Totaling more than 20,000 feet of film (10 hours), Harry Chuck’s exquisite unreleased footage has captured a divided community’s struggles for self-determination. Chinatown Rising is a documentary film about the Asian American Movement from the perspective of the young residents on the front lines of their historic neighborhood in transition. Through publicly challenging the conservative views of their elders, their demonstrations and protests of the 1960s-1980s rattled the once quiet streets during the community’s shift in power. Forty-five years later, in intimate interviews these activists recall their roles and experiences in response to the need for social change. With educational resources.

Forgotten Neighbors: Idaho’s Chinese Immigrants (2018, PBS Idaho Experience Season 1 Episode 3, 26 mins 48 sec)

In 1870 nearly one-third of the Idaho Territory’s population was Chinese. Most of these individuals were men who worked in mines, though a handful of Chinese women found their way to Idaho. Although the majority of the workers ultimately returned to China, they left a substantial impact on the American West, through the infrastructure they built and the Western culture they influenced. Featuring the Lok family.

Chinese Couplets: A Family’s Journey Through Chinese Exclusion (2015, Felicia Lowe, 5 mins)

Part memoir, part history, part investigation, Chinese Couplets spans two centuries, three countries and four generations of women in this intimate story that reveals the impact of America’s Chinese Exclusion Acts on journalist filmmaker Felicia Lowe’s family. Lowe offers a nuanced, engaging approach to the debate that details the long-term, multi-generational effects of ethnically motivated immigration policies while imparting a cautionary tale of living with cultural pluralism in the 21st century.

Legend of a Warrior (2012, Documentary Storm, 78 mins)

Frank Lee arrived in Canada in 1960. He was Grandmaster White Crane Kung Fu who devised his own style for contact fighting.  As a boy in Hong Kong, he grew up on the streets where he saw a lot of violence firsthand — mostly shootings and stabbings. It was a normal sight. However when he moved to Canada he was ready to leave all of that behind and forget what his life had been like in the ghetto.

The Chinatown Files (2001, Amy Chen, 57 mins)

In 2001, this documentary brought to the public, for the first time, a story that was classified as secret by the US government for over four decades. Exploring the roots and legacy of the Cold War on the Chinese American community during the 1950s and the 1960s, it presents first-hand accounts of seven men and women’s experiences of being hunted down, jailed, and targeted for deportation in America. During McCarthy era witch-hunts, the loyalties of over ten thousand American citizens of Chinese descent were questioned based on their ethnicity and alleged risk to national security. While China remains an enigma to most Americans, the prejudice and jingoism that has negatively affected the lives of Chinese Americans has rarely been examined. The Chinatown Files is a cautionary tale of paranoia and hysteria that serves as a dramatic and enduring reminder of the fragility of constitutional protections in the United States.

Vincent Who?: The Murder of a Chinese-American Man (2009, Tony Lam, Curtis Chin, 40 mins)

In 1982, at the height of anti-Japanese sentiments arising from massive layoffs in the auto industry, a Chinese-American named Vincent Chin was murdered in Detroit by two white autoworkers. Chin’s killers, however, got off with a $3,000 fine and 3 years probation, but no jail time. Outraged by this injustice, Asian Americans around the country united for the first time across ethnic and socioeconomic lines to form a pan-Asian identity and civil rights movement.

Carved in Silence (1988, Felicia Lowe, 46 mins)

Carved in Silence tells the story of Chinese immigrants who were detained at the United States Immigration Station at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay during the little-known Chinese Exclusion era. The film examines the genesis of racially discriminatory immigration policies, its reality, and its consequences. Interviews are intercut with historical footage and dramatic re-enactments to powerfully translate the impact of public policies into human terms.

Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1987, Christine Choy, Renee Tajima-Pena, 82 mins)

This film recounts the murder of Vincent Chin, an automotive engineer mistaken as Japanese who was slain by an assembly line worker who blamed him for the competition by the Japanese auto makers that were threatening his job. It then recounts how that murderer escaped justice in the court system.

China: Land of My Father (1979, Felicia Lowe, 28 mins)

Felicia Lowe’s search for the roots of her father’s family has resulted in a warm, insightful portrait of Mainland China in 1979. Her journey takes us through the streets of Beijing where street dialogues reveal the curiosity of local people about the lives of the Chinese in America to a conversation with an English-speaking woman who, like Lowe, is a working mother, but it is the landscapes in the faces of her aunts, uncles, cousins and 85-year-old grandmother that are the greatest rewards of the voyage.

Filipinx

Malditas (2022, 10:02 mins)

Two Filipinx cousins grapple with what remains of their dreams, after the loss of one father during the pandemic. Combining interviews, archival and verité, the film explores the tension between losing a parent in a highly Catholic Filipino community, the foreverness of childhood, and the possibilities of growing deeper in faith through grief while in the most conservative county in North Florida.

Defining Courage (2023, Jeff McIntyre)

Defining Courage is a journey into the legacy of the Nisei Soldier, Americans of Japanese ancestry who served in the segregated military units of the 100th IB, 442nd RCT, MIS, and 522nd FAB. Considered the greatest fighting units in American military history, most have never heard their extraordinary stories.

Becoming Yamazushi (2024, Director G. Yamazawa, 14 mins 8 sec)

In 1986, a small Japanese restaurant opened its doors and became the first of its kind in Durham, North Carolina. Years later, Yamazushi, operated by George and Mayumi Yamazawa, transformed into an experience that many would say is the first of its kind in the American South. Hip hop artist G Yamazawa reveals the essence of his family’s story and the art of being unapologetically authentic.

80 Years Later: On Japanese American Racial Inheritance in the Aftermath of WW2 Family Incarceration (2022, Celine Pareñas Shimizu, 50 mins)

The feature documentary 80 YEARS LATER explores the racial inheritance of Japanese American family incarceration during World War II through multigenerational conversations with survivors and their descendants.

In the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 that imprisoned 120,000 Japanese Americans in World War II, families still grapple with the legacy of their experience. How does one inherit traumatic history across generations?

Norman Mineta and His Legacy: An American Story (2020, Bridge Media, Inc, 55 min)

Alternative Facts (2018, Jon Osaki, 60 mins)

The Lies of Executive Order 9066 is a one-hour documentary feature film about the false information and political influences which led to the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. 

Alternative Facts sheds light on the people and politics that influenced the signing of the infamous Executive Order 9066, which authorized the mass incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans.  The film will expose the lies used to justify the decision and the cover-up that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.  ALTERNATIVE FACTS will also examine the parallels to the current climate of fear, attitudes towards immigrant communities, and similar attempts to abuse the powers of the government. 

A Bitter Legacy (2016, Claudia Katanagi, 78 mins)

The Japanese American incarceration camps are a widely known shame. Less known is that some camps were secret prisons to isolate US citizen “troublemakers” from other prisoners. These Citizen Isolation Centers are now considered precursors to the Guantanamo Bay prison. We must stand up and prevent this painful chapter of American history from being repeated today.

Why the US photographed its own WWII concentration camps (2022, Vox, 14:38 min)

Dorothea Lange’s photos of the incarceration of Japanese Americans went largely unseen for decades.

Fumiko Hayashida: The Woman Behind the Symbol (2009, Don Sellers, Lucy Ostrander, 16 mins)

In February 1942, two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the relocation of 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast in order to incarcerate them in isolated and desolate concentration camps. The government’s justification was to protect the country against espionage and sabotage by Japanese Americans.

The Registry (2020, PBS, 56 mins)

This film breaks open the hidden history of the US Army’s Military Intelligence Service (MIS) during World War II — a story made possible because of a few aging Japanese American veterans with a little Internet savvy and a lot of determination.

Lil Tokyo Reporter (2012, Jeffrey Chin, 30 mins)

Sei Fujii is a crusading reporter for a newspaper in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo section in 1935. He is concerned that the exploitation of the poor by local gambling concerns will not only hurt the community directly, but will also sabotage the efforts to make the rest of Los Angeles accept the Japanese of Little Tokyo as loyal and trustworthy Americans. Fujii sets out to bring the power of the press to play against the gambling houses.

Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust (2020, Ann Kaneko, 82 mins)

This documentary provides a fresh interpretation of the Japanese American confinement site by examining the environmental and political history behind the World War II camp. Prior to the war, Manzanar was where Native Americans were driven out and farmers and ranchers were bought out by the L.A. Department of Water and Power (LADWP). By connecting this camp to California’s environmental history, this film shows the intersectionality of how Japanese Americans, Indigenous communities, and locals have been mistreated by government entities that have not served the interests of all of their citizenry.

To Be Takei (2014, Jennifer M. Kroot, 94 mins)

This award winning documentary features Star Trek legend, marriage equality advocate, and spokesperson for racial justice; superstar George Takei.

But Takei’s true legacy may be his off-screen advocacy. When Takei was just a boy, his family was uprooted from their home in Los Angeles and forced into Japanese Internment as part of the mid-20th century U.S. government efforts to subjugate Japanese American citizens based solely on their ethnic heritage. A true elder statesman with a wry sense of humor, his awesome Facebook presence—initiated to help promote his Broadway-bound musical Allegiance, inspired by his life in the Japanese Internment—provides a daily dose of wisdom and wit. At a time when alarming rhetoric about Islamic and Latino Americans dominates the landscape, there is perhaps no better spokesperson for the historical legacy of fear and xenophobia in the U.S. than George Takei. George, and husband Brad, have also been unflappable spokespeople for LGBTQ rights.

Liquor Store Dream (2023, So Yun Um,1 hr 22:16 mins)

In Liquor Store Dreams, two Korean American children of liquor store owners reconcile their own dreams with those of their immigrant parents. Along the way, they confront the complex legacies of LA’s racial landscape, including the 1991 murder of Latasha Harlins and the 1992 uprisings sparked by the police beating of Rodney King, while engaged in current struggles for social and economic justice.

Geographies of Kinship (2019, Deann Borshay Liem, 112 mins)

In this powerful tale about the rise of Korea’s global adoption program, four adult adoptees return to their country of birth and recover the personal histories that were lost when they were adopted. Raised in foreign families, each sets out on a journey to reconnect with their roots, mapping the geographies of kinship that bind them to a homeland they never knew. Along the way there are discoveries and dead ends, as well as mysteries that will never be unraveled.

Memory of Forgotten War: Four Deeply Personal Accounts of the Korean War (2013, Deann Borshay Liem, Ramsay Liem, 38 mins)

This documentary conveys the human costs of military conflict through deeply personal accounts of the Korean War (1950-53) by four Korean-American survivors. Their stories take audiences through the trajectory of the war, from extensive bombing campaigns, to day-to-day struggle for survival, and separation from family members across the DMZ. Decades later, each person reunites with relatives in North Korea, conveying beyond words the meaning of family loss.

Vietnamese

Seadrift (2019, Tim Tsai, 60:08 mins)

In 1979, a fatal shooting ignited a maelstrom of hostilities against Vietnamese refugee fishermen along the Gulf Coast. Set during the early days of Vietnamese refugee arrival in the U.S., “Seadrift” examines this turbulent yet little-seen chapter of American history, and explores its consequences that continue to reverberate today.