{"id":219,"date":"2020-04-22T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/weta\/asian-americans\/?p=219"},"modified":"2020-05-21T18:42:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T18:42:49","slug":"the-producers-of-asian-americans-look-back-on-the-making-of-the-documentary-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/weta\/asian-americans\/the-producers-of-asian-americans-look-back-on-the-making-of-the-documentary-series\/","title":{"rendered":"The Producers of Asian Americans Look Back on the Making of the Documentary Series"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Lauren Lola<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 11-12, the Center for Asian American Media and WETA Television present the most comprehensive documentary series to date about the Asian American experience when Asian Americans <\/em>broadcasts on PBS. Over the course of five one-hour episodes, significant moments and little-known histories are explored in the long and vastly complex history of Asian America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right when she joined the project, Geeta Gandbhir, producer of the fifth episode, already knew the significance the series would entail. As she elaborated, \u201cA series about the diaspora has never been done in this way, and also there was a real focus on social justice issues. The lens of social justice was really important to this series, and that’s really important to me. A lot of the work I do in documentary focuses on social justice issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAsian American history is something I care about,\u201d said Grace Lee, director and producer of the second and fourth episodes. \u201cI never took Asian American studies in college, although I was a history major. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve always tried to learn on my own, and so I thought it would be a great opportunity to not only contribute to this landmark series, but also to go deeper into some topics that I was already inclined to be interested in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some of the producers, they learned about aspects of Asian American history that they weren\u2019t aware of before as they were working on the series. That was the case with S. Leo Chiang, producer of the first and third episodes, who initially didn\u2019t know how the U.S. government viewed South Asians in terms of race in the early 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn’t realize at one point they were seen as white and then they were flip flopping between being seen as white and nonwhite and white and nonwhite,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd because the race was so integral to citizenship in the early 20th century that it really had huge repercussion to the South Asian American experience. So that was a totally new thing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With having five hours to tell 150 years of Asian American history, narrowing down what events to include proved to be a challenge for many of the producers. As executive producer Jean Tsien said, \u201cHow do we tell a story accurately, fairly, and not following the conventional expectations of a PBS audience? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and we carry the responsibility to get our facts correct and to use our archival images properly for generations to come. We\u2019re all going to be gone one day and what\u2019s important is what we leave behind for generations to come, so we have the responsibility to do it right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other challenges the producers encountered also revolved around what era they were covering in their respective episodes. Gandbhir had the challenge of both working remotely from the East Coast and produce the \u201cbaby\u201d of the episodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut in some ways, it was also a blessing, because myself and my team were left to kind of creatively do what we wanted,\u201d she said. \u201cI also had an amazing story producer, Shaleece Haas, who I have to mention, who was instrumental in this because she was on the ground in LA, sort of on the front lines, demanding the attention we needed and finding stories. So that was really helpful. But I think that was just the biggest challenge, was really just being removed, not being as embedded with the team as everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee had the opposite problem. While working on the second episode, which mostly covers World War II, she found herself conducting interviews with descendants of those who lived through that era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou really understand why it\u2019s important to record our family\u2019s stories while people are still alive,\u201d she explained, \u201cbecause every time another generation passes on, the story gets diluted. Fortunately, we have things like documents and photographs and things, but nothing beats having filmed images, recorded audio of people telling their stories even later on in life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amidst the challenges the producers overcame working on Asian Americans<\/em>, many standout moments made the experience all the more rewarding and memorable for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Chiang, that came in the form of interviewing people like Tammy Duckworth and David Henry Hwang. \u201cThere were a lot of really great people that I had the privilege of speaking to and a lot of great stories that I heard,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes for the first time, sometimes it’s their stories that I’ve only read about, but now I get to hear it from the people that were connected to the source of that story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee liked seeing the evolution of the Asian American movement in the form of the Asian American Roots program at San Quentin Prison. \u201cIt was really cool to think about how 50 years ago, these 19-year-olds at [San Francisco] State were protesting just to learn the history of their communities, and then another 50 years later, people who\u2019ve graduated from these Asian American studies programs are doing the same thing for a new generation at San Quentin,\u201d she elaborated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revisiting history that has been explored by filmmakers before made for a powerful experience, as was the case of Gandbhir in revisiting Vincent Chin\u2019s story. \u201cRenee Tajima-Pe\u00f1a, who was one of our Series Producer, had done an amazing film on Chin. But to revisit it again, it is a story that never gets old. It is constantly relevant, so it was really powerful to revisit that story today,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that Asian Americans <\/em>was able to happen at all is a standout to Tsien, and considers it a tribute to like-minded filmmakers who paved the way such as Loni Ding and James Yee. \u201cThere was a time when the establishments did not trust or support Asian American filmmakers to tell their own stories, and I told everyone, this series is the most important project of my life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lauren Lola On May 11-12, the Center for Asian American Media and WETA Television present the most comprehensive documentary series to date about the Asian American experience when Asian Americans broadcasts on PBS. Over the course of five one-hour episodes, significant moments and little-known histories are explored in the long and vastly complex history of Asian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Producers of Asian Americans Look Back on the Making of the Documentary Series | Asian Americans | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For some of the producers, they learned about aspects of Asian American history that they weren\u2019t aware of before as they were working on the series.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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