Greater than 22 million individuals residing in the US are categorized as Asian People, and they’re not at all a monolith.
In response to Pew Analysis, their origins could be traced again to greater than 20 international locations, every with its personal distinct cultural practices and histories which have formed their American expertise.
Whereas it’s a problem to know the total spectrum of what it means to be Asian in America, documentaries have been produced to offer viewers a glimpse of how this rising inhabitants within the U.S. experiences life in a large number of the way and thru completely different historic lenses and generations, navigating discrimination and pivotal political occasions within the nation.
Stacker compiled a listing of 25 feature-length documentaries, organized by their launch date, to look at that discover themes and deal with points that proceed to influence the lives of this altering inhabitants in the US, together with cultural id, generational division, and racial discrimination, in addition to social justice, therapeutic, willpower, and resilience.
By these documentaries, you will meet youngsters at a public college’s award-winning theater program in New York’s Chinatown, observe filmmakers touring and accumulating private tales throughout the nation, see adoptees returning to their birthplace, watch a basketball star dunking on nationwide TV, and witness a household of attorneys difficult the American judicial system.
These aren’t simply Asian American tales; these are American tales.
Discover these documentaries to look at about Asian American life
Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1987)
– Administrators: Christine Choy, Renee Tajima-Pena
– Runtime: 82 minutes
Violent assaults in opposition to Asian People have been a part of the American panorama since Chinese language immigrants first arrived within the mid-1800s, with the perpetrators of a few of the most horrifying assaults — the Chinese language Bloodbath of 1871, for example — strolling free. Greater than a century later, that was nonetheless the case in Detroit.
Twenty-seven-year-old Vincent Chin was overwhelmed to loss of life with a baseball bat in 1982 by white assailants, a father and his stepson, who ultimately confessed to the crime and have been charged with manslaughter (fairly than homicide)—however by no means served any time.
By archival footage, interviews with these related to the homicide and the circumstances that adopted, Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Pena’s Oscar-nominated doc examines components that will have led to the homicide and weak sentencing and the way Asian People (who shaped the American Residents for Justice) and different communities got here collectively to demand justice for Chin within the first civil rights case in historical past to contain an Asian American.
Forbidden Metropolis, U.S.A. (1989)
– Director: Arthur Dong
– Runtime: 56 minutes
San Francisco has been residence to generations of Chinese language People, however what’s not as extensively identified is there was a Chinese language nightclub that opened in 1938 that broke all perceived stereotypes of what it meant to be Chinese language. At Charlie Low’s Forbidden Metropolis, dancers and singers carried out nightly (some scantily clad) to packed homes, that includes stars such because the Bubble Dancer, the Chinese language Fred Astaire, and Chinese language Sally Rand. “Forbidden Metropolis, U.S.A.” offers viewers a take a look at the full of life Chinese language-owned and operated nightclub scene of the Nineteen Forties and its significance to the neighborhood by means of interviews with those that frequented Forbidden Metropolis and tells the goings-on inside what one girl described as “a three-ring circus on daily basis.”
My America… or Honk If You Love Buddha (1997)
– Director: Renee Tajima-Peña
– Runtime: 87 minutes
Journey throughout the nation with filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña on this Sundance Award-winning venture profiling completely different Asian People who uncover buried histories — one such discovery includes the location of a former Japanese American focus camp she visits with activist Yuri Kochiyama — to doc the altering Asian American inhabitants, each in dimension and variety.
It is an America vastly completely different from the one Tajima-Peña remembers many years in the past on household holidays as a baby, once they crossed completely different state strains with out seeing one other Asian.
Multihyphenate character Victor Wong (identified most for his appearing work) impressed the movie and is prominently featured, memorably sharing how he turned a beatnik and befriended Jack Kerouac. Questions Wong poses within the doc: “What’s an Asian American? Am I Asian? Or am I an American?”
First Particular person Plural (2000)
– Administrators: Deann Borshay Liem, Jefferson Spady
– Runtime: 60 minutes
On this poignant documentary, Deann Borshay Liem displays on her upbringing in a middle-class American household by white mother and father who adopted her from a South Korean orphanage when she was 8 years previous and the motivation that led her to seek out her beginning mother and father as an grownup.
Her “American” childhood is proven by means of household images and her father’s movie footage, one devoid of a Korean id.
Early on, she reveals startling particulars about her adoption story (additional explored in her 2010 documentary “Within the Matter of Cha Jung Hee”) and historic occasions in South Korea that led to a wave of transnational adoption.
Frank conversations along with her American members of the family are additionally captured, main as much as and through the first assembly of each her households in South Korea. The documentary introduced consideration to the advanced problems with transnational and transracial adoption — lack of language, tradition, and beginning identify, amongst them, in addition to adoptees feeling torn between cultures and households.
Saigon, U.S.A. (2004)
– Administrators: Lindsey Jang, Robert C. Winn
– Runtime: 57 minutes
“We’re all these items that different People are… however we’re additionally refugees” is a sentiment expressed within the opening of the documentary set in Little Saigon, a neighborhood in Orange County, California, residence to the most important inhabitants of Vietnamese People within the nation and the largest Vietnamese neighborhood outdoors of Vietnam.
“Saigon, U.S.A.” recounts the historical past of Vietnamese individuals fleeing the nation to the U.S. by means of painful private accounts and the way their refugee standing from a war-torn nation has impacted their lives. It additionally examines the significance of the 53 days of protests in early 1999 in Little Saigon — sparked by a shopkeeper’s public show of help for Ho Chi Minh — that made nationwide headlines and divided the neighborhood.
Contrasting views from completely different generations are expressed about what freedom and being American imply to them in mild of the person’s demonstration of his First Modification rights, but in addition how the occasion unexpectedly led the neighborhood to heal previous wounds.
Grassroots Rising (2005)
– Director: Robert C. Winn
– Runtime: 56 minutes
The battle of Los Angeles’ working-class immigrant communities for the American Dream is examined by means of the tales of employees combating collectively for higher pay, working situations, and equal rights with such organizations because the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance and Garment Employee Heart.
Offering a greater future for his or her youngsters was the motivation for lots of the employees — day laborers, caregivers, garment, and restaurant employees — who spoke in regards to the sacrifices that purpose entailed, in addition to how they have been deceived by corporations that introduced them to the US to work.
The phrases of artist Alison de la Cruz additionally give voice to their hopes, disappointments, and resilience, because the doc reveals the ability of Asian American labor actions, previous and current.
The Grace Lee Venture (2005)
– Director: Grace Lee
– Runtime: 68 minutes
Rising up in Columbia, Missouri, there weren’t many youngsters who regarded like Lee, a uniqueness she’d come to embrace. However when she moved away, director Grace Lee found her identify was ubiquitous: tens of 1000’s shared her identify and primarily left optimistic impressions on acquaintances and colleagues.
In an effort to delve deeper (and hopefully discover Graces who did not match that mould), the documentary follows the director as she launches an internet venture that connects her to lots of of others who share her identify.
In “The Grace Lee Venture,” viewers watch her journey throughout the nation to satisfy them and be taught their private tales and motivations — together with activist Grace Lee Boggs, who can be the topic of a future doc — on this extraordinary exploration of how Asian American ladies are perceived and see themselves.
Hollywood Chinese language (2007)
– Director: Arthur Dong
– Runtime: 90 minutes
Being an actor of Asian descent in America has traditionally been (and continues to be) a profession filled with obstacles, with few roles to select from—typically as sidekicks, one-dimensional or stereotypical “unique” beauties, perennial foreigners, or worse.
“Hollywood Chinese language” reveals how the Chinese language have been depicted on the large display screen, beginning with the silent period, together with how white actors performing in yellowface have been the established order and have been even awarded Oscars for doing so.
Movie clips and stills from quite a few movies are featured — starring such display screen icons as Anna Could Wong, Nancy Kwan, and James Hong — and commentary from well-known actors of the day, together with different business professionals who present extra views on the influence of Chinese language in Hollywood and vice versa.
Someplace Between (2011)
– Director: Linda Goldstein Knowlton
– Runtime: 88 minutes
See Asian American and transracial adoptee life by means of the tales of 4 youngsters who have been adopted from China once they have been younger. On the time of the movie’s launch, they have been among the many estimated 80,000 ladies adopted from the nation since 1989.
The documentary reveals slices of their on a regular basis lives in numerous components of the U.S., providing their very private takes on being adoptees from a special nation raised in white households whereas additionally chronicling their journeys to their birthplace. What they share in widespread and what distinguishes the women is revealed over the course of the movie, in addition to their hopes for the long run throughout a pivotal time of their lives.
Filmmaker Linda Goldstein Knowlton, who’s white, was compelled to embark on this formidable venture partly due to her adopted Chinese language daughter, Ruby. “How may I be there for her? I spotted that I had the chance to discover my questions with many ‘consultants,'” she advised Ladies in Hollywood. “I selected to observe 4 ladies, attempting to signify a range of expertise and geography, and see what they needed to say.”
Uploaded: The Asian American Motion (2012)
– Director: Kane Diep
– Runtime: 75 minutes
As we speak, filmmaker Kane Diep is understood for the viral video content material he has produced, with such internet-friendly titles as “I Requested My Mother 11 Intimate Questions Earlier than It is Too Late,” “Quick Guys Strive Being Tall for the First Time,” and “Asian People Recreate Iconic Journal Covers.”
A bit over a decade in the past, he was additionally chargeable for creating an vital time capsule about Asian American popular culture with “Uploaded: The Asian American Motion,” which options interviews with 60 Asian American creatives — from dancers and administrators to content material producers and cultural critics — who share their various experiences.
The experiences lined within the venture embrace being the token Asian of their respective industries, the restricted “different” roles obtainable to them (typically stereotypical), the flicks and TV reveals that influenced them, and the way digital platforms helped them attain international audiences on their very own. You may inevitably marvel as you hearken to their tales, has a lot modified for Asian People in leisure up to now decade?
American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs (2013)
– Director: Grace Lee
– Runtime: 82 minutes
Filmmaker Grace Lee Boggs paints a exceptional portrait in “American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs,” tracing the Boggs’ involvement in radical actions for greater than 70 years, starting with assembly Black activists in Chicago after which in Detroit. Lee interviewed Boggs over the course of 10 years, following the spirited Boggs as she taught courses and visited with mates (typically arguing with them). You may even see the director giving Boggs a haircut. That is how private this work is.
Throughout the first couple of minutes of the movie, you will be hooked on Boggs’ voice. The activist remembers how she and her husband, Alabama native and creator James Boggs, met and would change into pivotal figures within the grassroots Black energy motion through the Sixties that would come with launching an all-Black political occasion. (The FBI had thick recordsdata on each of them.)
One of many scenes that stands out is when Boggs, then in her late 80s, passionately says whereas pounding her palms on the desk, “I feel that if we persist with these classes of race and sophistication and gender, we’re caught.”
Linsanity (2013)
– Director: Evan Jackson Leong
– Runtime: 89 minutes
Basketball participant Jeremy Lin’s rise from relative obscurity to place to begin guard for the New York Knicks was a narrative not even probably the most imaginative author may have scripted: an Asian American NBA star? As one broadcaster mentioned, “He simply did not match the mould.”
In “Linsanity,” Lin shares how this widespread sentiment performed out in his life, having been doubted as a participant by employees every time he visited gyms for apply and enduring a barrage of racist taunts and slurs as some extent guard for Harvard — by no means realizing sudden stardom would greet him on the opposite aspect.
For individuals who lived by means of “Linsanity” and people who have but to listen to his story, the documentary has all of the spectacular footage that made him a world sensation and a supply of Asian American delight. Within the doc, Lin says, “I do know God orchestrated this complete factor.”
Nonetheless, interviews with household and his early coaches communicate to Lin’s willpower and potential whereas acknowledging that the trail to school ball — a lot much less the NBA — for an Asian American had but to be paved till his arrival.
9-Man (2014)
– Director: Ursula Liang
– Runtime: 89 minutes
Sports activities and camaraderie are on the coronary heart of this documentary, following groups of Chinese language American males competing within the annual event of 9-Man, a type of volleyball performed with 9 gamers on all sides of the online.
The streetball recreation first developed in China and have become a pastime for early Chinese language immigrant males within the U.S. wanting a respite from grueling, low-paying jobs in eating places and laundromats; the pervasive anti-Chinese language sentiment; and legal guidelines such because the 1882 Chinese language Exclusion Act.
A long time later, the sport remains to be a supply of delight for Chinese language American males dedicated to preserving the game alive in parking tons and metropolis streets throughout the nation.
Important Arrival: Michigan’s Indian Immigrants within the twenty first Century (2014)
– Director: Merajur Rahman Baruah
– Runtime: 61 minutes
In 2012, Indian immigrants accounted for roughly 14% of the immigrant inhabitants in the US and tended to be extremely educated and pursued work within the STEM and well being care fields. However such information offers a restricted, simplistic view of the rising inhabitants, as do the favored cultural photos of Bollywood performers, the IT guys, and other people sporting turbans or saris.
Including depth and nuance to those oversimplifications, producer-professor Arifaa Javed’s venture lets people of various generations in Michigan specific who Indian People are by sharing their immigration tales, what issues to them, and the desires they pursue, together with interviews with these from outdoors the neighborhood.
Abacus: Small Sufficient to Jail (2016)
– Director: Steve James
– Runtime: 88 minutes
Through the mortgage disaster of the late 2000s, a small, Chinese language family-owned financial institution, Abacus Federal Financial savings Financial institution, turned the main focus of a legal indictment threatening not solely the household’s livelihood however the lives of everybody the household served in New York’s Chinatown neighborhood.
Regardless of the Abacus homeowners taking the correct actions to report and hearth the mortgage officers who had dedicated fraud at their financial institution, the financial institution was handled way more harshly than bigger banks, with far-reaching fraud schemes affecting 1000’s throughout the nation.
Right here, we watch how the founder Thomas Sung and his three lawyer daughters (one in every of whom had labored within the district legal professional’s workplace) reply on this real-life David-and-Goliath authorized story of an immigrant household’s financial institution that offered loans to an ignored and underserved neighborhood when nobody did.
The district legal professional’s unjust therapy of all events of Chinese language descent is especially underscored—whereas different establishments have been let off with fines—and the way it affected individuals’s view of the bigger neighborhood and themselves.
Blended Match (2016)
– Director: Jeff Chiba Stearns
– Runtime: 95 minutes
Asian People are the group with one of many lowest percentages of individuals on nationwide donor registries, offering little hope for these of Asian descent affected by life-threatening blood ailments of discovering a match. The probabilities are bleaker for Asian People of combined backgrounds searching for a donor.
In “Blended Match,” we hear the tales of hopeful sufferers, these on the donor registry who gave sufferers an opportunity at survival, and meet Athena Asklipiadis (who has Japanese and Greek heritage), the founding father of Blended Marrow, whose mission is to extend the variety of multiethnic and minority bone marrow and blood cell donors.
The award-winning doc by Japanese Canadian filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns options not solely these sufferers of Asian descent however these of different ethnicities as properly whereas addressing how their multiracial id is seen otherwise as a result of the therapy of their sicknesses is intimately tied to it.
The Chinese language Exclusion Act (2017)
– Administrators: Ric Burns, Li-Shin Yu
– Runtime: 114 minutes
Most People would not have the ability to inform you what the Chinese language Exclusion Act of 1882 was. The federal regulation restricted Chinese language employees from each getting into the US and prevented Chinese language individuals already within the nation from turning into Americans. It was the primary regulation in the US authorities to ban immigration primarily based on race or ethnicity—but removed from the final to single out Asian People.
The documentary delves into what components led the act to change into regulation (regardless of being unconstitutional), the way it impacted American demographics, and who was thought-about American for many years.
Ulam: Primary Dish (2018)
– Director: Alexandra Cuerdo
– Runtime: 90 minutes
Till not too long ago, Filipino delicacies bought little love past the Filipino American neighborhood. “Ulam” was launched as these cooks began to make headlines frequently.
Within the movie, Alexandra Cuerdo visits a few of the most well-known cooks and restaurateurs to find out how they bought their begin within the culinary business, what led them to serve their Filipino and Filipino-inspired dishes, and the help methods (together with different FilAm cooks) that helped make their dream ventures attainable. Depend on seeing some behind-the-scenes cooking and lots of tantalizing dish pictures that may have you ever craving Filipino meals on your subsequent meal.
Asian People (2020-present)
The must-watch five-part movie collection from PBS is likely one of the most complete seems at Asian American historical past, detailing the arrival of early immigrants and the constructing of the nation’s railroads to main farm labor actions, whereas additionally analyzing the legal guidelines that restricted the place Asian People may dwell to whom they may marry. It is formidable to find out how a lot of this historical past has largely gone untold or taught in colleges.
All through the docuseries, you will start to invest why that is the case and the way it impacts the Asian American expertise. The collection additionally takes us to present-day America, the place points confronted by earlier generations (racial discrimination and hate crimes, amongst them) proceed to loom. Nonetheless, it additionally celebrates the numerous figures from the neighborhood who’ve fought such injustices and different trailblazers who’ve made a spot for themselves in numerous fields and industries.
Cane Fireplace (2020)
– Director: Anthony Banua-Simon
– Runtime: 90 minutes
Kaua’i has served because the backdrop for Hollywood productions for ages, however its working-class residents and Indigenous communities have been by no means the principle attraction, nor have been they traditionally represented in correct or flattering methods. Sound acquainted? As an alternative, they have been continually relegated to mere further roles—together with the filmmaker’s Filipino great-grandfather — or labored behind the scenes whereas witnessing the destruction of their land and the erasure of their histories on display screen.
Anthony Banua-Simon covers this in “Cane Fireplace” by setting off seeking misplaced footage of a movie through which his great-grandfather appeared. Study in regards to the historical past of Hollywood on the island (and its exploitative practices) and the way the business impacted native agriculture and spawned an enormous tourism business by means of movie clips and interviews with impacted locals, reminiscent of his members of the family and activists working to reclaim lands from builders.
Curtain Up! (2020)
– Administrators: Kelly Ng, Hui Tong
– Runtime: 69 minutes
Comply with a loveable and proficient group of elementary college performers from PS 124 in New York’s Chinatown as they put together for his or her college’s manufacturing of “Frozen” in Kelly Ng and Hui Tong’s “Curtain Up!” The movie showcases the children’ full of life auditions and rehearsals with their supportive instructors main as much as opening evening. Elsewhere, we meet generations of the children’ households within the consolation of their properties, together with the comedic and tender interactions between them and the heartfelt conversations they’ve.
All through the doc, the children’ views on the world and one another are particularly memorable and as essential as they arrive, together with this reflection by one of many fifth-grade stars: “I like being Asian as a result of it is the place I am from. It is fairly bizarre, as a result of, like, curriculum in Chinatown, why do not they educate about Chinese language individuals? All they educate about is Christopher Columbus. … They do not present what sort of individuals we have been again then.”
The Donut King (2020)
– Director: Alice Gu
– Runtime: 90 minutes
Cambodians personal roughly 80% to 90% of the independently owned donut retailers in Southern California. That is the story of how that got here to be, and it begins with a Cambodian refugee, referred to as “Uncle Ted,” who constructed a donut empire. Getting his begin studying the enterprise in a Winchell’s coaching program earlier than beginning his personal chain, Ted Ngoy quickly helped different refugees and members of the family personal their very own donut companies. Ngoy additionally launched the pink doughnut field that has change into iconic within the Southland.
Betrayed: Surviving an American Focus Camp (2022)
– Director: Rory Banyard
– Runtime: 56 minutes
Throughout World Struggle II, greater than 100,000 Japanese People have been unjustly positioned in focus camps. However solely the Japanese residing within the nation have been focused: not the Italians, nor the Germans. “Betrayed” revisits that point in historical past by means of archival footage and interviews with households. The survivors discuss in regards to the many challenges their neighborhood confronted previous to being positioned in camps, what they endured, and the devastating losses of their civil rights, property, and companies.
It was a traumatic expertise that was tough for generations of these incarcerated to debate. “We have been stripped of all the things,” one survivor says within the venture, with one other noting the trauma it brought on households even afterward was “shut out of our life as a result of it was horrible. It was extra merciful to us to overlook than to speak about it.”
Large Robotic: Asian Pop Tradition and Past (2022)
– Administrators: Dennis Nishi, Dylan Robertson
– Runtime: 56 minutes
When LA punk rockers Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong launched “Large Robotic,” a 1994 zine-turned-full-color bimonthly journal about “Asian popular culture and past,” nobody was overlaying it. “Within the ’90s being Japanese American wasn’t cool, but it surely was cool to me,” Nakamura mentioned.
The publication would give ink to actions and celebrated figures of Asian descent when there was little (if any) Asian American illustration in mainstream media. They’d publish tales on Hong Kong cinema, Japanese American focus camps, Asian subculture stars, and extra, reaching audiences on a world scale and serving to launch the careers of many artists and actors.
The movie chronicles the way it all got here to be, of their phrases, with beforehand unseen video footage relationship again to the magazine’s inception and insightful interviews with Takashi Murakami, Margaret Cho, James Jean, and Daniel Wu. As Wong says within the doc, “It feels good to see somebody who seems such as you” — and nobody did it like “Large Robotic” did for Asians and Asian People.
Like a Rolling Stone: The Life & Instances of Ben Fong-Torres (2022)
– Director: Suzanne Joe Kai
– Runtime: 99 minutes
Probably the most influential music journalists and editors of our time, and referred to as by a colleague as “King of ‘Inform Me Extra,'” Ben Fong-Torres interviewed quite a few legendary musicians for Rolling Stone, together with Marvin Gaye, the Doorways’ Jim Morrison, Elton John, and Steven Marvel.
In “Like a Rolling Stone,” music followers will immediately be drawn to the archival video footage and interview recordings of such icons, however equally thrilling is getting a peek at his archives of lots of of cassette tapes and seeing a grasp interviewer at work unearthing beforehand untold tales.
Amongst different fascinating particulars revealed within the doc contains one such account of the origin of his identify — created to avoid the Chinese language Exclusion Act, his father bought a Filipino beginning certificates to immigrate to the States as Ricardo Torres.
This story was initially revealed by Stacker and republished pursuant to a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.
