Culture

Asian Americans

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 personal stories, the series will cast a new lens on U.S. history and the ongoing role that Asian Americans have played.

Breaking Through

53m 34s

At the turn of the new millennium, the national conversation turns to immigration, race, and economic disparity. As the U.S becomes more diverse, yet more divided, a new generation of Asian Americans tackle the question, how do we as a nation move forward together?

Episodes

  • Breaking Through: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Breaking Through

    S2020 E5 - 53m 34s

    At the turn of the new millennium, the national conversation turns to immigration, race, and economic disparity. As the U.S becomes more diverse, yet more divided, a new generation of Asian Americans tackle the question, how do we as a nation move forward together?

  • Generation Rising: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Generation Rising

    S2020 E4 - 54m 11s

    During a time of war and social tumult, a young generation fights for equality in the fields, on campuses and in the culture, and claim a new identity: Asian Americans. The war’s aftermath brings new immigrants and refugees who expand the population and the definition of Asian America.

  • Good Americans: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Good Americans

    S2020 E3 - 54m 11s

    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.

  • A Question of Loyalty: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    A Question of Loyalty

    S2020 E2 - 54m 1s

    An American-born generation straddles their country of birth and their parents’ homelands.

    CORRECTION: Certain errors in a previous version of this program have been corrected, including the statement that the Core Civic South Texas Family Residential Center separates children from their families, which is not the case, and the erroneous use of a photo of a different facility.

  • Breaking Ground: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Breaking Ground

    S2020 E1 - 54m 11s

    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.

Extras + Features

  • Learning Their Asian American Roots at San Quentin Prison: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Learning Their Asian American Roots at San Quentin Prison

    2m 26s

    Across the bay from San Francisco State University, where students launched a historic strike for ethnic studies in 1968, Thanh Tran is the graduation speaker in his own Asian American studies class. ROOTS: Restoring Our Original True Selves is a program at San Quentin prison that addresses intergenerational trauma under the motto: “If you know history, you know yourself.”

  • ‘If You Were in That Circle, You Are Going to Be Arrested’: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    ‘If You Were in That Circle, You Are Going to Be Arrested’

    1m 35s

    Laureen Chew joined the Third World Liberation Front to fight for ethnic studies and educational equity. In 1968, they mounted the longest campus strike in U.S. history. Laureen and a generation of young Asian Americans, many who were first-generation college students, were forever changed.

  • Asians Were America’s First “Undocumented Immigrants”: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Asians Were America’s First “Undocumented Immigrants”

    30s

    Connie Yu’s family story in the U.S. almost ended at the Angel Island Immigration Station, where her grandmother was detained for over a year, separated from her American-born children. In an atmosphere of nativism and hate, exclusionary laws have made Asians the nation’s first “undocumented immigrants.” Yet those who manage to stay, build families and communities in America.

  • A Louisiana Family Discovers Their South Asian Roots: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    A Louisiana Family Discovers Their South Asian Roots

    2m 38s

    South Asians began arriving in significant numbers during the late 1800s. Most were men who settled in communities of color and faced segregation and laws against intermarriage with whites. Many formed multiracial families like Moksad Ali, a Bengali Muslim trader, who married an African American woman, Ella Blackman. Together they navigated race in an era of anti-Asian exclusion and Jim Crow.

Schedule

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