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ASIAN AMERICANS Premieres Monday Night! // Digital Town Hall: Asian Americans in the Time of Covid-19

5/10/2020

Asian Americans premieres Monday, May 11, 2020 at 8PM on PBS and you can watch all 5 episodes Monday and Tuesday! See the episode guide at this link or below.

Also, in connection with the series, the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), WETA, and Asian American community leaders hosted a digital town hall exploring how lessons from Asian American history can help us understand the experience of Asian Americans in the time of COVID-19. Watch it here.

Episodes 1 and 2: Monday, May 11th, 8pm to 10pm

EPISODE 1: BREAKING GROUND
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.

EPISODE 2: A QUESTION OF LOYALTY
An American-born generation straddles their country of birth and their parents’ homelands in Japan and Korea. Those loyalties are tested during World War II, when families are imprisoned in detention camps, and brothers find themselves on opposite sides of the battle lines.

Episodes 3 through 5: Tuesday, May 12th, 8pm to 11pm

EPISODE 3: GOOD AMERICANS
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.

EPISODE 4: GENERATION RISING
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.

EPISODE 5: BREAKING THROUGH
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?

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The Half of It

5/1/2020

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Released on Netflix today!
https://twitter.com/thatalicewu
https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheHalfOfIt

A little over 15 years later, Alice Wu is back with her second film, The Half of It, released May 1 on Netflix. Like her first, the movie features a queer Chinese American protagonist. This time, though, the character is a high schooler, Ellie Chu, who lives in the fictional, very white town of Squahamish with her immigrant father. She's in love with a girl named Aster Flores, but instead of pursuing her own feelings, opts to help a boy woo Aster via love letters and text messages. Over the course of the movie, Ellie and Paul become close friends and teen hearts get broken—a classic teenage rom-com, but with an LGBTQ twist.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/05/01/848853718/what-alice-wu-wants-to-say-in-the-half-of-it

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ASIAN AMERICANS Premieres Monday Night! // Digital Town Hall: Asian Americans in the Time of Covid-19

The Half of It

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