The Asian Americans

FAIN: TD-50688-14

Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association (Arlington, VA 22206-3440)
Jeff Bieber (Project Director: January 2014 to July 2016)

Development of a four-hour documentary film series about Asian Americans in the United States from the mid-19th century to the present.

"The Asian Americans" is a proposed four-hour film series about the unique and evolving identity, contributions, and challenges experienced by Asian Americans in the United States over the past 150 years. Through the stories of Asian Americans, we will see the United States expand into the West and onto the world stage. We will explore the familiar immigrant experience of hope and disappointment, opportunity and struggle--but also a new one: legal exclusion. Through the eyes of Asian Americans, we will witness three wars fought in Asia in a single century; and rethink America's global position as Asian nations continue to rise economically and militarily. Through the exploration of this complex history, the series will reveal the contradictory responses our nation has had to its growing diversity: resentment and racism as well as embrace and inclusion, while raising questions about the future for Asian Americans and our nation as a whole.