Asian Pacific American Studies | Events
ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN FILM SERIES - Fall 2006
Location: Sunday evenings, 5-7 pm
Time: Cabell 311
In conjunction with AMST 201 / ENMC 355, Asian American Cultural History, the Asian Pacific American Studies (APAS) minor will be screening a weekly series of films related to Asian Pacific Americans. All screenings are open to the university community.
ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN FILM SERIES
Fall 2006
Sunday evenings, 5-7 pm, Cabell 311
In conjunction with AMST 201 / ENMC 355, Asian American Cultural History, the Asian Pacific American Studies (APAS) minor will be screening a weekly series of films related to Asian Pacific Americans. All screenings are open to the university community.
Ancestors in the Americas: Coolies, Sailors, Settlers: Voyage to the New World (Loni Ding, 1995, 64 min., VHS 12211)
Ancestors in the Americas: Chinese in the Frontier West (Loni Ding, 1998, 60 min., VHS 12212)
Most people think of Asians as recent immigrants to the Americas, but Asians have been an integral part of American history since before the Revolutionary War in the United States. Coolies, Sailors and Settlers explores how and why people from the Philippines, China and India first arrived on the shores of North and South America. It traces the globally interlocking story of East and West, tying 18th and 19th century developments in Europe and the Americas to the story of Asian immigration -- from a Chinese Guangdong province village, an Indian seacoast village, Filipino and Chinese sailors jumping ship (Spanish galleon) in Mexico. Using the dramatic voice of an Asian "Every man" narrator to represent the Asian perspective, the film portrays the harsh conditions of survival, settlement and, for some, later re-migrations throughout the Americas.
Part 1 tells the untold story of how Asians-Filipino, Chinese, Asian Indian-first arrived in the Americas. Crossing centuries and oceans … from the 16th-century Manila-Acapulco trade … to the Opium War … to the 19th century plantation coolie labor in South America and the Caribbean.
Part 2 portrays the large-scale immigration of Chinese during the Gold Rush, their central role in developing the American west, and their landmark legal battles to overcome discrimination and expand the definition of "American."
September 3
Savage Acts (Pennee Bender, 1995, 30 min., DVD 06131)
U.S. overseas expansion at the turn of the century was not just the concern of government and business; it was the stuff of everyday life. Savage Acts tells the story of how the Philippine War and American domestic culture forged a new U.S. foreign policy. Soldiers' letters, world's fair exhibitions, early films, travel guides, and heroic monuments expressed the growing sense of national mission based on ideas of racial superiority. But the victory of imperialist policies was not inevitable; expansion and the way it was expressed in the daily life of the nation, sparked opposition both at home and abroad.
Bontoc Eulogy (Marlon Fuentes, 1995, 60 min., VHS13441)
This personal and poignant docudrama portrays the Filipino experience at the 19094 St. Louis World's Fair, telling its story from the point of view of a present-day Filipino immigrant in the U.S. whose grandfather, Markod, was "exhibited" as an Igorot warrior at the Fair. It chronicles Markod's experience, one of eleven hundred natives brought to America to be part of the "Philippine Reservation." The St. Louis World's Fair was the site of the largest "ethnological display rack" the world has ever known, an exhibit where thousands of "primitive" men and women from all over the globe were displayed side by side with the artifacts and monuments of Western scientific progress and civilization.
The ambiance of the World's Fair, and the conditions that the native Filipinos endured as "specimens" of colonial anthropology, are evoked through the use of archival footage and photos, interspersed with present-day scenes. Creatively fusing history, memory and imagination, the narrator/filmmaker explores the complex psychological territory of a unique and celebrated world event where race, science and politics intertwined on a scale and in a manner never seen again.
A Dollar a Day, Ten Cents a Dance (Mark Schwartz, 1984, 29 min., VHS 8864)
Enticed by the promise f jobs and fair wages, 100,000 Pinoys (Filipino Americans) immigrated to the U.S. between 1924 and 1935 to toil on California's farmlands. Because of the exclusion of Filipina women's immigration and the U.S. anti-miscegenation laws, they survived the loneliness of racial discrimination by creating close-knit bachelor societies and entering into common law marriages, where cockfights, poker games and dance halls served as their entertainment.
September 10
Continuous Journey (Ali Kazimi, 2004, 87 min., DVD 06290)
Continuous Journey is a complex tale of hope, despair, treachery and tragedy. It is a revealing Canadian story with global ramifications set in a time when the British Empire seemed omnipresent and its subjects were restless and seeking self-determination.
In 1914, Gurdit Singh, a Sikh entrepreneur based in Singapore, chartered a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru, to carry Indian immigrants to Canada. On May 23, 1914, the ship arrived in Vancouver Harbour with 376 passengers aboard: 340 Sikhs; 24 Muslims and 12 Hindus. Many of the men on-board were veterans of the British Indian Army and believed that it was their right as British subjects to settle anywhere in the Empire they had fought to defend and expand. They were wrong...
Continuous Journey is an inquiry into the largely ignored history of Canada's exclusion of the South Asians by a little known immigration policy called the Continuous Journey Regulation of 1908. Unlike the Chinese and the Japanese, people from British India were excluded by a regulation that appeared fair, but in reality, was an effective way of keeping people from India out of Canada until 1948. As a direct result, only a half-mile from Canadian shores, the Komagata Maru was surrounded by immigration boats and the passengers were held in communicado virtual prisoners on the ship. Thus began a dramatic stand-off which would escalate over the course of two months, becoming one of the most infamous incidents in Canadian history.
September 17
Troubled Paradise (Steven Okazaki, 1992, 56 min., VHS 13705)
Troubled Paradise, the new film by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki, is both a celebration of the richness of Hawai'ian culture and a compelling look at the social and political problems facing its indigenous population. Set on the Big Island of Hawai'i, the film offers four stories about Native Hawai'ians fighting for the survival of their culture. It also features performances by the islands' finest musicians and dancers, and breathtaking footage of recent volcanic eruptions. It reveals a Hawai'i that mainland films and television never depict and most tourists never see.
Then There Were None (Elizabeth Kapu’uwailani Lindsey, 1996, 26 min., DVD 06132)
To millions of travelers the world over, Hawai'i is an alluring picture postcard paradise. but to its Native Hawaiian people, nothing could be further from the truth. Their compelling story, of a race displaced and now on the verge of extinction, is brilliantly told in this award-winning documentary created by the great-graddaughter of Hawaiian high chiefs and English seafarers.
September 24
screening:,
We Came to Grow: Japanese Americans in the Central Valley, 1869-1941 (Heather Searles, 1999, 27 min., VHS 13709)
This documentary is a chronicle of the first Japanese to settle in California's Central Valley and their impact on the state's leading industry. The establishment of the Wakamatsu Colony in Gold Country near Coloma in 1869, by refugees fleeing civil war in the Aizu Wakamatsu area of Japan, begins a story strongly linked to California's rise as an agricultural force. Also explored
are the development of the Yamato Colony during the early 1900s in Merced County, the formation of families and attempts to limit immigration, citizenship and ownership of property for Japanese new to California. The growth of Nihonmachis (Japanese communities) in most of the valley's towns and cities, from Marysville to Fresno, is one of many rare historical details included in this program.
Moving Memories (Robert Nakamura, 1993, 31 min., VHS 13708)
Americans of Japanese ancestry have been in the U.S. since the 1880s. Yet in the first half of the century, while the majority society was routinely reflected in the popular media, Japanese Americans were not. They, as well as other Americans of color, went undocumented in the newsreels and motion pictures of the day.
Nevertheless, Japanese American gardeners, priests, businessmen--large and small--even former picture brides began recording their lives on home movies as soon as the first amateur cameras became available in 1924. Today they survive as the only motion picture documentation of this American group and provide a never-before-seen look at America in the making.
October 15
History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige (Rea Tajiri, 1991, 32 min., VHS 13204)
Rabbit in the Moon (Emiko Omori, 1999, 85 min., VHS 10293)
October 22
From Hollywood to Hanoi (Tiana Du Thi Thanh Nga, 1994, 80 min., DVD 04661)
October 29
Who Killed Vincent Chin? (Christine Choy, 1998, 82 min., VHS 8836)
November 5
Sa-I-Gu: From Korean Women Perspectives (Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, 1993, 36 min., VHS 9319)
Wet Sand: Voices from L.A. Ten Years Later (Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, 2004, 60 min., VHS 13710)
November 12
BBQ Muslims (Zarqa Nawaz, 1995, 5 min., VHS12554)
In the days following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, there was a media frenzy pointing fingers at the North American Muslim community. Several weeks later, Oklahoma police arrested and convicted Timothy McVeigh, a white American. The cruel irony of that historic moment inspired this offbeat tale of two Muslim American brothers' backyard barbecue mishaps.
Death Threat (Zarqa Nawaz, 1997, 19 min., VHS12554)
The story of a young Muslim woman who has written an appallingly bad, Harlequin-type novel and is struggling to find a publisher. Depressed, frustrated and irritated after receiving her fifty-ninth rejection, she decides that controversy is the only way to catch a publisher's eye; but her exploitation of cultural stereotypes eventually backfires on her.
Punjabi Cab (Liam Dalzell, 2004, 20 min., DVD05861)
Since September 11th 2001, turban-wearing Sikhs in America have endured harassment and violence because they are mistaken for the stereotypical Middle Eastern terrorist. PUNJABI CAB looks at the lives of San Francisco Bay Area taxi drivers working under this threat. We learn how their experiences of hate is tempered by faith, compassion, and pride in their culture.
November 26
I’m the One That I Want (Margaret Cho, 2000, 96 min., DVD 03524)
[ Back to Events ]
|
