Personal histories of Asian American families tell the stories of a changing American population in a five-part documentary airing over two nights, Monday and Tuesday, May 11 and 12, 2020, starting at 8 p.m. on WGCU HD.
“Asian Americans” is narrated by Daniel Dae Kim (“Lost,” “Hawaii-Five-O”) and chronicles the hardships that many Asian immigrants suffered as well as the contributions they made to this country.
In 1904, the Philippines was a newly acquired colony of the United States. The American view of the Filipinos was that they were savages. The world’s fair that year, held in St. Louis and officially called the Louisiana Purchase Exposition to commemorate the 1803 agreement, featured a “replica village” of people from the Philippines’ Igorrote tribe.
The nearly 2,000-mile First Transcontinental Railroad was largely possible through the effort of Chinese immigrant workers in the 1860s. Young Chinese men came to America in overcrowded ships to work on laying the track. They arrived in San Francisco and were sent to the Sierra Mountains to put in hard labor. An estimated 80 to 90 percent of the Chinese construction crew dug tunnels with hand tools and blasting power.
And in spite of this, Americans were not welcoming to the Chinese, with the Chinese Exclusion Act banning any further immigration from that country in 1882.
But the Chinese already here had faith in their move, settling in to San Francisco’s Chinatown. (Above: A meat and vegetable market in Chinatown, 1895.) Many of them became businessmen and entrepreneurs.
A Chinese American also was the subject of a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and defined American citizenship as being automatic for anyone born in this country.
Led by a team of Asian American filmmakers, including Academy Award-nominated series producer Renee Tajima-Peña (“Who Killed Vincent Chin?”, “No Más Bebés”), “Asian Americans” examines the significant role of these peoples in shaping American history and identity, from the first wave of Asian immigrants in the 1850s and identity politics during the social and cultural turmoil of the twentieth century to modern refugee crises in a globally connected world.
Here are short episode descriptions:
- Breaking Ground, Monday, 8 to 9 p.m.
In an era of exclusion and U.S. empire, new immigrants arrive from China, India, Japan, the Philippines and beyond. Barred by anti-Asian laws they become America’s first “undocumented immigrants,” yet they build railroads, dazzle on the silver screen, and take their fight for equality to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- A Question of Loyalty, Monday, 9 to 10 p.m.
An American-born generation straddles their country of birth and their parents’ homelands in Asia. Those loyalties are tested during World War II, when families are imprisoned in detention camps, and brothers find themselves on opposite sides of the battle lines.
- Good Americans, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m.
During the Cold War years, Asian Americans are simultaneously heralded as a model minority and targeted as the perpetual foreigner. It is also a time of bold ambition, as Asian Americans aspire for the first time to national political office and a coming culture-quake simmers beneath the surface.
- Generation Rising, Tuesday, May 12, 9 to 10 p.m.
During a time of war and social tumult, a young generation fights for equality in the fields, on campuses and in the culture, and claims a new identity: Asian Americans. The war’s aftermath brings new immigrants and refugees who expand the population and the definition of Asian America.
- Breaking Through, Tuesday, 10 to 11 p.m.
At the turn of the new millennium, the country tackles conflicts over immigration, race, economic disparity, and a shifting world order. A new generation of Asian Americans are empowered by growing numbers and rising influence but face a reckoning of what it means to be an American in an increasingly polarized society.
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'Asian Americans' recalls challenges and triumphs of early immigrants - WGCU News
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