ANCESTORS IN THE AMERICAS: CHINESE IN THE FRONTIER WEST: AN AMERICAN STORY (TV)
Summary
The second of three documentaries in this series that looks at the extensive, yet often overlooked, history of Asian immigrants in the Americas. This documentary focuses on Chinese immigrants in the American west in the nineteenth century. Their stories are told via memoir-like narration (provided by Pat Morita and others), commentary from scholars, archival materials, and dramatizations. Topics covered by the program include the following: the arrival of the Chinese in California during the gold rush; the laws applied to (and often written for) the Chinese in order to keep them -- like blacks and Native Americans -- from flourishing in America (including a discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scot case and Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court Hugh G. Murray's decision in People v. Hall, 1854); the measures taken by the Chinese populace to fight the discrimination and violence they faced; the skills and mind-set that enabled the Chinese to survive and flourish against the odds; the communities formed by the Chinese throughout the western states; how the Chinese maintained ties to their homeland; issues faced by Chinese women in America and those left by husbands in China (including discussion of the Federal Page Law of 1875); Chinese contributions to American and, more specifically, Californian agriculture and fishing industries; how the history of Chinese in America might have differed in a less discriminatory society; and the means through which Chinese Americans fought for their rights, such as the more than 170 cases brought to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Ho Ah Kow's suit in the California Supreme Court which resulted in the inclusion of the Chinese under the protection of the Fourteenth Ammendment, allowing the term "American" to encompass ethnic groups and cultures originating outside Western Europe for the first time. Commenting on these and other subjects are William Coate of the Madeira Historical Society; Professor Patricia Limmerick of University of Colorado at Boulder; Professor Roger Daniels of the University of Cincinatti; Professor Gary Okihiro of Cornell University; Professor Sucheng Chang of University of California, Santa Barbara, Archaeologist Guy Marden of the U.S. Forestry Service; Professor L. Ling-chi Wang of University of California, Berkeley; third-generation Chinese American Margaret Gee; Professor Sandy Lydon of Cabrillo College; and Professor Charles McClain of the Boalt School of Law.
(This program is a press preview copy.)
Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 2003.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS KCTS Seattle, WA
- DATE: March 25, 2001 12:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:56:56
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:78338
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Chinese Americans - History; Frontier and pioneer life - U S; Asian American Pacific Islanders Collection
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 2001
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Loni Ding … Producer, Director, Writer
- Alison Raleigh … Associate Producer
- Victoria Hern … Researcher
- Stephen Soong … Researcher
- Eric Schurig … Music by
- Zhou Long … Music (Misc. Credits), Additional composition by
- Pat Morita … Narrator
- Terry Chow … Voice
- Robert Ernst … Voice
- Crystal Huie … Voice
- Alan Lau … Voice
- Wood Moy … Voice
- Hawlan Ng … Voice
- Ou Wei Ye … Voice
- Alison Wong … Voice
- Sucheng Chang
- William Coate
- Roger Daniels
- Margaret Gee
- Ho Ah Kow
- Patricia Limmerick
- Sandy Lydon
- Guy Marden
- Charles McClain
- Hugh G. Murray
- Gary Okihiro
- Dred Scott
- L. Ling-chi Wang