My America... or Honk If You Love Buddha

"Then, for a school project, I interviewed my grandparents about their internment camp memories, and my teacher told the class they were lying. That something like the camps could never happen in America. In that moment, I knew it was racism that defined my life. And I would never turn the other cheek as my parents had. I fight back."

A quest to represent perspective, communicating truths of what it has meant over generations to be of Asian descent in America, as well as just how diverse this umbrella term really is. As Tajima-Peña travels to various parts of the country, she presents quite a kaleidoscope of people. There are some tough topics here, like firsthand experience with internment during WWII, abuse in the home while growing up, or Hmong immigrants having lost children in Laos, getting rocks thrown at them while being told to "Go back to your country," in Duluth, and the husband losing his job. However, Tajima-Peña keeps the spirit of the film light and irreverent, including when she quotes racist sources in a deadpan manner.

It's a disparate group, but I appreciated most the streak of fighters that ran through it, including the beatnik turned actor Victor Wong, civil rights and black power activists Yuri and Bill Kochiyama, Seoul Brother rappers in Seattle Michael and Raphael Park, UCLA student activist Alyssa Kang, the lesbian about to come out to her German-Indian family Madhuri Rosemary Anji, and the filmmaker and her family as well. The Kochiyamas tickled and impressed me most of all, and the reading at the grave of Freedom Rider James Chaney, killed by the KKK, was a treat. I probably could have done without real estate entrepreneur/hustler Tom Vu, or the Burtanog sisters in New Orleans, 8th generation Filipino Americans who consider themselves white and discourage family not to marry black people, but by including them Tajima-Peña presents a broader, less varnished picture.

It's a small film but with each new person Tajima-Peña brought into the film, or as she circled back to Victor Wong or her own family in ways that framed the narrative, I was always interested. I found the final quote quite powerful too:

"I've realized the question is not how people become real Americans, but how America has become its people. We are its people."

I recorded this movie off PBS one day when I was in college. Didn't know what I was recording, I just habitually recorded things off of PBS at the time. As an Asian American myself, I found this to be an excellent overview of the experiences and feelings that we encounter from the more ignorant and racist side of America. However, we were born here, this is the only country we know, and we love it the same as any other immigrant's children - white, black, brown, or whatever. This movie deals with that situation, where we live and love our country but have to deal with the idea that many Americans have that anyone who is Asian must be "foreign" or "unamerican". It talks about the history of our struggles for civil rights over the past century and how we were right there alongside the African Americans in the 60s fighting with them. Also discussed are many disservices done by America to Asian-Americans and how they are still today treated in surprisingly racist ways. It also explores how some Asians fit into stereotypes and how many definitely don't. It also deals with the concepts of interracial relationship between blacks, white, Asian, and Hispanics. The filmmaker talks to many different types of Asian Americans from different areas of the country and gives you a very interesting cross section of the surprising makeup of people that is Asian American. There are so many kinds of people you never knew existed.

I watched this several times and I always enjoyed it. There were some excellent shots. I also liked a few of the transitions and the editing in general I thought was clever. The interviews are very intriguing.

A few problems I had were I didn't like the narrator's voice and delivery. Obviously she's a normal person doing her own movie's narration and it sounds amateurish, but it is tolerable nevertheless. The film quality suddenly changes near the end because she used video instead of film in one section. Some people aren't explored as much as I would have liked. I think the movie could have been stronger somehow, but I'm not sure. It's a quiet movie and a lot of the issues brought up might still be confusing to non-Asians watching it, and might end up boring to some. Although like I said, I thought it was all really cool.

If you are interested in Asian American issues, the film still holds true today and you should like it a lot.