DOCUMENTARIES ON THE VIETNAMESE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE
TO BE PRESENTED

On Wednesday, April 7, Assistant Professor of Anthropology Melissa Pashigian will present and discuss two documentary films dealing with the experiences of Vietnamese immigrants to the United States. The program, titled "Home/Bound: Two Vietnamese Immigration Stories Through Film," is sponsored by the Center for Ethnicities, Communities and Social Policy and is free and open to the public. It will be held in Thomas 110 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Bu Doi: Life Like Dust is Arin Mishan and Nick Rothenberg's 1994 documentary about a young man's experience trying to survive in a new cultural context in the United States after fleeing Vietnam. The film, incorporating archival footage from Saigon as well as new footage shot by the filmmakers in Southern California, traces the life of Ricky Phan, a Vietnamese refugee who became involved in a Vietnamese youth gang in Orange County, California. Phan narrates the story from a prison cell where he is serving a sentence for armed robbery. After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, Bu Doi: Life Like Dust won the grand prize at the USA Film Festival and the CINE Golden Eagle Award, among others.

Vietnam: Looking for Home was aired on PBS's Frontline: World series in 2003. The film follows writer and journalist Nguyen Qui Duc, who left Vietnam more than 30 years ago, as he returns to Vietnam to contemplate his identity and his relationship to the place of his birth. Finding a country transformed as much by the tourism of recent years as the bombings and political upheavals of the 1960s and '70s, Duc ponders what makes up a national identity.

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