CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY SERIES PRESENTS FILM SCREENING

The Office of Intercultural Affairs will continue its Critical Media Literacy Series on Monday, Nov. 30, at 9 p.m. in the Multicultural Center with a screening of My America (...Or Honk If You Love Buddha) by Renee Tajima-Peña.

In My America, Tajima-Peña, inspired by Jack Kerouac's classic beat novel On The Road, embarks on a freewheeling cross-country mission to survey the changing face of Asian America. Old home movies and archival footage form the basis for her journey as she traces an arc from her family's beginnings in Los Angeles, where her grandfather settled, to the present, where she discovers a multicultural landscape populated by colorful characters and shaped by shared experiences.

She finds Asian Americans carving out their lives in the Chinatowns of urban America, as well as in small-town USA. She encounters debutantes and rappers, freedom fighters and mothers. there are no model minorities on this ride save "Mr. Choi," a fortune-cookie maker/entrepeneur whom Tajima-Peña describes as "Horatio Alger on amphetamines."

Tajima-Peña's mentor and guide on this journey is actor and Beat artist Victor Wong, who was immortalized in Kerouac's Big Sur and has appeared in The Joy Luck Club and The Last Emperor.

Tajima-Peña is hailed as a leading chronicler of the Asian American experience through her work as a writer, film critic, lecturer and, most notably, filmmaker. She produced the Oscar-nominated Who Killed Vincent Chin? and directed The Best Hotel on Skid Row for HBO and The Last Beat Movie for the Sundance Channel. My America won the award for best cinematography at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival.

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