Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Recommendation: 'Asian Americans' Documentary on PBS
As Asian Pacific American Heritage Month winds down, please make plans—if you haven't already—to watch the documentary, Asian Americansavailable to watch on PBS.org. The documentary is quite ambitious both in scope and in narrative detail. Its strongest impact occurs when the filmmakers key in on the intertwining of individual families’ stories with events that figure prominently in Asian American history. The film is an excellent overview of a rich history that has often been overlooked in mainstream American consciousness. Divided into three parts, it runs approximately five hours in total.
Street Scene of Pell Street Chinatown, NYC 1899, NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID 80095
Several authors who spoke on camera, were mentioned in passing, or had their work acknowledged in the documentary, have books in the NYPL collection. Here are some of their representative works:
- Bald, Vivek. Bengali Harlem and the Lost History of South Asian Americans
- Lee, Erika. The Making of Asian America: A History.
- Ngai, Mae. The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America
- Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans
- Wu, Ellen. The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model MInority
- Zia, Helen. Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People
The documentary is especially relevant now. The animus directed towards Asian Americans, chiefly those presumed to be of Chinese descent, during the COVID-19 pandemic is sadly not new and has been a part of the Asian American experience since the beginning. Another important theme of the documentary is resilience among this group of Americans. If history is any indication, Asian Americans will overcome the present circumstances as they have in the past. The Asian Americans documentary sheds light on that past.