My America...Or Honk If You Love Buddha

Major funding for this program was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding was provided by the following funders. To tell you the truth, I never would have been born if it wasn't for a mob of Asian haters. You see, back in 1906, my grandfather left his family in Japan to start a new life in America. But as soon as he stepped on shore in San Francisco, he was chased down by angry Russian Marines. They were battering him with rocks and yelling, go home, chink! So what grandpa do when he ran for his life and hit it south for Los Angeles? And that's how my grandfather just barely missed the great San Francisco earthquake that very next day.

Whenever I've gotten the same crap my grandfather got, go back to where you came from. I think to myself, what do you mean, Chicago? It was born about two blocks from Rigley Field. Mom and dad were the Japanese version of Aussie and Harriet. Every summer, we piled into the Ford Fairlane and took off for the open road. But I noticed something odd. We drive clear across five states and never catch a glimpse of another Asian face.

Hi, Bob. Hi, guys. You're on the air, my friend. Yeah. You know, these people can be sent back for everyone you make a citizen. They're going to bring 50 other family members. And we got enough people like this on welfare. I went to school with Oriental and I know how they are really prejudice and arrogant people. And they show their true colors with black people. These days, when you look around, we're all over the map. But from the sound of it, you think we are still some kind of alien nation. That's wrong with referring to the Japanese as job. It's offensive. What gives you the right to say it's offensive? Was it because you have a Japanese girlfriend? It's because you have a Japanese girlfriend. Will we ever truly belong in America? I decided I had to find out for myself.

Unlike Grandpa, I don't have to run. But I can drive. This is the story of my search for Asian America. I have settled in my negative side. Where is that woman? Oh no! No one is gay. Or an Indian. She does all that. The first thing I do is make a pilgrimage to San Francisco's Chinatown to meet the legendary Victor Wong, the star of the low-budget classic Chan is missing. This movie had practically changed my life, it's the story of a cab driver who goes around

Chinatown looking for a guy named Chan and winds up running into some of the most honest of life Asian American characters I've ever seen on film. What's this Victor? This must be the first street of the Chinatown, I'm pretty sure of it. This is what it called Tonggyan guy, you know you know days you say, what are you uses? I'm a Tonggyan, meaning I'm a man of the Tong Dynasty. My name is Wong Daito Wong, meaning I'm a person from the Yellow River Valley. I'm a very old dude. Victor was born right here at the air to a new dynasty. His father was Sir King Wong, the man who once cornered the MSG Monopoly of all America and he was the mayor of Chinatown. And these were all the politicians that ran Chinatown in the middle of it, just my father.

But Victor Chinatown's prodigal son refused to be cut from the same mold. Victor can call him the Wong that went wrong. One of the odd ways I rebelled was to rebel without telling myself, my right hand didn't know what my left hand was doing. For instance, when I was very troubled as a teenager, I became a Jesus freak. I was preaching the street, you know, repatriate and be saved for the second coming of Christ will happen right here in Chinatown. My father was so pissed off at me. He took my Scofield Bible, which was all underlined and I had memorized thousands of verses on it.

He tore the whole thing apart. This is you little son of a bitch, you know. My father was the mayor of Chinatown going, oh, this crazy kid of mine, you know, I really caused him a lot of problems. And to top it off, Victor became a beatnik. Yep, I was a beat alright. Because the beat movement in the 50s were of people who did a lot of work in the arts. And the other reason why I got into it was because that movement took place right next to Chinatown. Of course, the Chinese didn't pay any attention. They said, what were people, you know, and one day, Karabakh appeared, he just showed up. We just been back and forth across the country several times and cars and our adventures are over. We're still great friends, but we have to go into later phases of our lives. He asked me to, you want to follow us around, you know, so I got in this car with an

abstract and off who went. And he wrote about me in the book, Copic Sur, which is a son of a famous Chinatown family and Chinatown is right back there behind the fabled Beatnik Street to Frisco, you know. He was a tremendous little lover boy who had fabulous, beautiful girls on the line. Same with the first people that I known who were not Chinese, who treated me like I was just one of the boys. What is an Asian American? Am I Asian or am I an American? From the time you're in grammar school, you know, they all say the same thing to you. Forget about being Chinese. We're in Shakespeare. We're in about the Romans and the times of King Arthur and all that, you know, Chinese history.

Oh, no, no, no, no, you're in America now. This is America boy. I always thought as I was growing up that as an Asian American, I really had to write my own manual as to how to live in this country. Here's a guy as old as my father, but he's got the same questions I've got. Finding victors like finding Buddha, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Carolwack all rolled up in one. I know the strangled man will lead me in the right direction. I'm just about to hit the road when victor throws me my first curve. He's not the star of my favorite movie, Chan is missing. The real actor is actually Wood Moe. See here's victor and here's Wood Moe.

Would it be we all do look alike? Anyway as victor would say, the glory of a real trip is letting those accidents of fate propel you along your journey. In Chinatown, I meet a miss Mr. Choi, the 1990s version of victor Wong's father. Instead of MSG, Mr. Choi's dream is to corner the fortune-cooking market everywhere from

Boston to the Carolinas. Mr. Choi is a man who doesn't waste any time. He keeps these calendars pinned to the wall, so there's no need to fiddle with time consuming our old access and phone books. I don't look like a picture, I look like a phone number. I want to make money a couple of years and retire, that's it. Where are you going? I go this way. I want to pry you very cheap, you see that pry yet? My turn get too free. Is that your lunch? No, dinner. Not lunch. Good for dinner. Making money is around the clock business for Mr. Choi.

He's got a fortune-cookie operation upstairs, and in the basement he's selling fish. So I'm following him back and forth between the fortune-cookies and the fish tanks. When finally he's taking a break. But before I know it, we're off to somewhere. In the Bronx. Because Choi has a third job teaching martial arts. Then he gets on the phone to schedule his fourth job teaching back in Chinatown. But not before he tries to sell me their promotional calendars, he markets as a sideline. Cost you? How much do you want to pay? You can call Mr. Choi an immigrant role model, but for me, it's more like competing with

a racial algeron and feathers. Even on Chinese New Year's, guess who's doing security. You know, some scientists believe Asians have a kind of supergene that we're able to work harder and delay immediate gratification. It's the bigger brains, smaller genitalia theory. Surveys of the world literature show that orientals are the most restrained. Other measured by intercourse frequencies, premarital, marital or extra marital, reproductive speed, age of first intercourse, age of first pregnancy,

or number of pregnancies per unit of time. Finding for cranial capacity, orientals 1448 cubic centimeters, and blacks 1334 cubic centimeters. I don't buy those theories about genetics. But there's gotta be something that drives Mr. Choi. Whatever it is, it's driven me to complete exhaustion. So I take a swing through the south for some R&R. I spend the day sightseeing at the wiki-watching mermaid show, then settle in for dinner when it dawns on me. Mr. Choi is very much like my grandfather in the old-time sojourners who came here to work the railroads and canneries. They dreamed of making tons of money on the gold mountain

and returning home as wealthy men. But others came for freedom. That's the immigrant dilemma. To come here with visions of liberty and equality, or to take the money and run. Because my father and mother kept saying all through our growing up years, you're gonna go back to China someday, you know. I never been there, but the other phrase was, Fan Zhongguang, that phrase was over and over again. This is no country for you, nobody likes you here. They'll cheat you, they'll kill you, they'll poison you. So, you know, get ready. You know, we're gonna leave as soon as we can. Of course, we never could. So we all started to think about being American. But it wasn't until the civil rights movement came along that I felt like I could become part of America. Oh!

Hey! That's all! And now that I'm here, I can't wait to see you again. Here in the French Quarter, I discovered New Orleans is the home of the oldest Asian pioneers, and they came for freedom. I asked the president of the Filipino Club to fill me in.

The Filipinos were here since 1765. We came here through the Manila Galio trade, that's the Spanish trade between Capoco and Manila, but the Filipinos did not know that they were in Louisiana. She tells me the sailors jumped ship on the bayou to escape the brutality of their Spanish masters. That means Filipinos have actually been here as long as 230 years. And these babies are 8th generation Filipino Americans, descended from a Filipino merchant marine and his Irish bride. I pay a visit with the matriarchs of Louisiana's oldest Filipino clan. This is Bonita and Audrey and Mayan Joyce, and it's Pope Renate and St. Bernard Parish. Yes, I'll have this for a few minutes. Three aces.

You consider yourself southerners first for Filipinos first? Oh, we're southerners first. We are mercenaries first and southerners second. We're southerners, we're definitely southerners. Yeah, I don't say that. My grandmother used to say, that's my flag in her grandmother's. That is not your country, the Philippines. This is your country. The Philippines is not your country. I suppose after 200 and some odd years in America, you do start to fill at home. I can't eat that. The sisters were considered the bells of the French Quarter. Here is May, a great beauty who has once crowned Queen of the Marigra. From all I've heard, Louisiana society is a complicated one, with blacks, whites, creoles and cagens. Audrey and May tried to explain to me how the Filipinos have managed to get along by going along. Filipinos were not considered a race other than white,

because Spain owned the Philippines, so they were just considered white. They were citizens of Spain when they came here. What would you all Filipinos consider themselves? When, for instance, when we were born on our birth certificate, it's white. Yes, they changed that now. But our children also has white on their birth certificate. Yeah, white. What tell me, what do you consider yourself? White. We always dated American, but we had segregated schools, segregated churches. Of course, we did not go to colored schools at all. We just went to the white schools and the white churches. Grandma, we just asked the boys, what is your mother's maiden name? And she would tell us, don't go out with that boy, he's mixed. Grandma, what do you mean, mixed? You know what I mean, mixed? His people have black blood in it. There's no better test for race mixing than a graveyard.

Unlike blacks, the Filipinos could be late to rest next to, below, or on top of the other white citizenry. Barricere is the grave of great aunt Nan. She was the Burdenog family enforcer when it came to mixed marriages. I always have many spooky stories in our family. That old lady named, we call her the voodoo cleave of the French Quarter. She put a curse on these two first cousins. She told these two sisters, you know, her two nieces. I put a curse on their daughters and their daughters and their daughters for generations down. That they'll all have bad marriages. Because we married them poor Americans. They weren't full-blooded Asians. But the curse didn't work on my mom and dad because they were married till they died almost 60 years ago. I know, but she, but she cursed daddy because your ladies are going to cross on you.

And daddy doesn't believe in that molorca because he was born in Alabama. But I was the first born. And so when I got polio, they said, you see? You see, the curse came out on her. It looks like Aunt Nan's curse came out on all the Burdenogs. The sisters had 10 marriages between them. And Audrey alone accounts for four. Are you still married? Yes, still married? I never did. I'll make sure I know we get married again. This lesson was so bad, it said, you're good. Get me out of this mess. I'll promise you I'll never get married again. Are you waiting for the die or something? I don't know. You might be dead. I could be getting more money. You could see it. You did. I bet a nigga wouldn't know it. I love you. I love you. I could never quite figure out where we Asians come up with these formulas for intermarriage. Take Asian parent A, they'll say, it's okay to marry Korean, but no Filipino. Then comes white, then Puerto Rican, no black.

Then for parent B, Chinese for my son don't care about the daughter as long as he's not white. As for parents C, Filipino yes, Japanese no, no Mexican and as usual, no black. I'm waiting to hear the words and I love you. My wives were never Chinese because I got the impression they were right or wrong. If I married somebody who was a Chinese American, that there would be a lot of pressure from that wife to make me conform. Get into business, go to work, eight to five, buy a house, buy property, buy stocks and bonds, cut your hair and all that. And I was fiercely independent. I met Victor in 1954. I was directing a play and I was looking for actors. And then we got married after, right after the play. I think it was only done one night and then we got married shortly thereafter.

It was a very short courtship. Wow, that's pretty quick. That's exactly what my parents thought. It was a little too quick. They didn't approve nor did his family. His family sent their minister to my father to try to persuade him to keep us from getting married. And his father also sent for me to, you know, he wanted to interview me and said, discouraged me from getting married because he said the Chinese did not enter Mary. They were pure race and that the children would be funny looking and why didn't we just live together. I was very insulted at the time. This is the times of when all the races will come together.

So for me, I didn't think much of that this person was black and I'm Chinese and all that kind of stuff. We thought they would be a new world, but America just wasn't ready. Alexi Detokfield believed that Americans will always be haunted by the conflict between black and white. On my way out of New Orleans, I drive past plantations where Chinese workers were imported to take the place of African slaves after the Civil War. And I wonder what that conflict has meant for us Asian Americans. I join up with a pair of old friends from New York City.

Our first stop together is Rosedale. Their oldest son Billy came here as a freedom writer in 1964. I never met Billy, but I know he died young. The Kochiyamas are here to visit the Davises. The family Billy stayed with that freedom summer. And you Billy's father died. I was trying to take how many people to stay here during the time Billy was here. I believe it was about daughter. They were all staying right here. Up here, right up from the bank, it was a restaurant and blacks weren't allowed in there at all. And Billy and the Mr. Goop then sat out every day in front of the restaurant.

Every day they never did fail. Well, they kept on, they got the fighting up there. Black people started going in the restaurant. And I guess that's about the biggest major thing at that particular time, because everybody thought it was very impossible to get them to let black people in there. This visit to Mississippi is like a homecoming in more ways than one. Bill and Yuri's romance began right here at Camp Shelby in the middle of World War II. Tell me when you first met. I'll bet he just knew we remember. You never remember that date. What was the date? November? Yeah. But you don't remember the date? 43 or 22? No, but the date. November of what? I don't know. 20th. Well, I first met her in November 20th, 1943. And a bus load of visiting GI's, where we're given the pass to spend a weekend at the concentration camp known as Jerome Arkansas.

We arrived at camp around two in the morning. And she was the only one there greeting us. And it was her customs to get their names. And she would say, well, what island are you from? And so when she asked me, you know, I was being a smart ass. I said, I come from Manhattan Island. Of course, he was very good looking and quite dashing. And I guess the fact that he was from New York made him seem like, you know, a very sharp kind of guy. Always giving, as he says, smart ass remark. But you know how women think that sort of clever or something. Bill and Yuri's love affair always struck me as something right out of a Hollywood screenplay. Bill was a young GI with all Japanese-American 442 battalion.

But there was one glitch in this love story, while Bill was fighting the Nazis overseas. Yuri was a prisoner in Arkansas at a concentration camp for Japanese-Americans. Here in the land of Buffalo Bill, the government is erecting model camp towns, towns in which they live unmolested, not as prisoners, but free to work and paid by the United States government. Math tongues. Yes, all the comforts of home. The Japanese in America are finding Uncle Sam a loyal master despite the war. Women, you know, that's all that's left, maybe. Where was the camp? Women. What's all that empty space? Is that the camp? I'm taking a bulldozer and bury this thing. And bury what thing?

The camp. Oh, you did it? Oh, yeah. Oh, you bulldozer the whole camp? Yes, bury it. The buried city. See, this was blocked. You remember where I was street, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was 10,000, y'all here. Right. Now, look at here. Y'all weren't prisoners of war. Well, we were so. You was in turn for your protection. They claimed, you know. But we came. I came and went. We considered ourselves prisoners of war. But wait a minute, wait. What I want to know is- I thought to have the justice done to them. Oh, man. I could out there in love with them. I mean, I was here with them every day. And you knew the Japanese people? I was in here with them. Wait, can I get a shot of your put your head on more because I can't see them. That's fine. Unless you could open the door. What's his name again? John Ernest John. John Ernest Ownington. No piece of it. Just the piece of it. I wouldn't have one. How did the people around your own feel about the Japanese coming here? Well, all those people that was here didn't go. You- we talked about 47 years ago. And these young folks don't even know what it's all about.

But how did they feel? Well, they all- and they felt like me. They felt like the mistreated. When he was around them and with them, they- looking here, when the water pump was coming springing, uh, those messages didn't hear how the dead, they cried just like the white people. They lost a man or son in husband. By the end of the war, we thought we were becoming expendable. What do you mean by that? That we were always the point of an attack. And being at the point of the big army or a division attack, you know, you're always vulnerable on both sides and in the front. And so we took the front, many times, the front of the casualties. But they said that they always put the best troops to lead the way, you know. Yuri knows that she knew personally these young newlyweds

and the husband would go overseas and first day of combat and within one month they did. So there were a lot of young widows. And that's why I wasn't trying to weasel out of a marriage, but that was a terrific consideration. Bill and Yuri traveled a long road after the war. They moved to Harlem to raise their six children. They spent 50 years there fighting for justice and not only for Asian Americans. And now the road has brought us here to the grave of James Cheney,

the young civil rights worker murdered by the clan in 1964. You and your two comrades Goodman and Schwerner are part of a history that can never be erased. Others have followed after you and always the struggle for a better, safer and equitable world will continue. Today on May 26, four days before your forty-eight birthday, we are here to remember you and be inspired by your life. Bill and Yuri introduced a generation of Asians to Malcolm X. They've lived history. As a child, I had no idea the black struggle for equality I saw on TV had anything to do with Asian Americans.

It changed our lives. Asian Americans got fair housing, the right to enter Mary, even the right to be here. In 1965, Congress struck down the Asiatic Bard Zone, laws that virtually excluded Asians from the country. The doors were opened and I wonder what have we given back? I'm on my way to my hometown of Chicago. I think back to growing up here during the 1960s, talk about being invisible.

If one Asian showed up for ten seconds on TV, the whole family would come running to see it. Dad would race in from the yard, grandma would grab her walker, and then you could never be sure it was a real Asian. So you are the enemy. With these guys on the screen, Victor Wong had a lot of guts to try his luck as an actor at the famous Second City Theatre. How sad to dissolution you, and how easy. Second City is just a ways for my old house. Sure enough, I find Victor on the Wall of Fame. It was my first time out of Chinatown,

and here I am suddenly in a strange city not knowing anybody, and having to perform with a group that was all white. I was frightened. It was just the beginning of the civil rights movement, you have to remember. And people were kind of didn't know what to do with this Asian American in their midst. Sometimes didn't have very good time from fellow actors, like I say, why don't you go home, kid? You don't belong here. So I didn't work out. Music Spend it on a corner in Hong Kong.

My baby was down. Coming back again to Chicago has set my memories into overdrive. Somewhere a long time ago, I made two vows in life. First, like Victor and the Kochiyamas, to stand up against the attitudes that confronted my grandfather at America's door, and second, I'd never turn into my all American parents. Just like Bill Kochiyama, my father joined the army eager to fight the Nazis. But as luck would have it, Dad's unit was quarantined with chickenpox back in the USA. By the time they got to the German front, the war was already over. Meanwhile on the home front, mom was spending her teenage years

locked behind barbed wire. The Japanese have a concept. The nail that sticks up must be pounded down. Mom believed that being two Japanese got her sent to the camps. So we were raised to just blend in. I didn't know from Japan. Except Grandpa's family was there, and it was so poor we'd have to send them care packages in the school of all this great stuff every Christmas. In 1966, my family pulled up roots from Illinois and set off for California. We got there just in time for the summer of love. And in short order, we went from this to this.

We each rebelled in our own way. Bobby, my metaphysical brother, became a deadhead and ran off to a mooney camp. But the moonies kicked him out because they thought he was too wacky. And if that wasn't embarrassing enough, get a load of me. There was my hippie phase, my disco phase, my wannabe homegirl phase. Then for a school project, I interviewed my grandparents about their internment camp memories, and my teacher told the class they were lying. That something like the camps could never happen in America. In that moment, I knew it was racism that defined my life. And I would never turn the other cheek as my parents had. I'd fight back. I joined up with other young people who were as angry as I was. That was the end of being an outsider.

And I decided I'd become a filmmaker to show the world. And what's amazing for me to discover is Victor Wong was right there with us. It was a time of great turmoil. So for 10 years, I was just exposed to the world as a reporter. It was a remarkable thing. This is during the time these ladies no longer there. And that's something. You see all these pictures? I took all these pictures. These faces. I looked for an answer in all these faces. Here's your generation when the young kids finally stood up.

For the first time in my life, I knew I belonged in America. I felt comfortable in my own skin. Not to say I didn't take things a little too far. To show my ethnic pride, I made shirts out of these premium rice bags. I believed in yellow power. I believed in Ho Chi Minh. And I believed the East was red. It seems like a lifetime ago when I had everything all figured out. But here I am again, back on this crazy search.

Wong, welcome to Car Talk Broadcasting from the Car Talk Center with a comparatively impaired car talk to us. There's got to be a better way. Hi, my name is Tom Wu. Let me tell you what happened to me. In 1975, me and my family came to America as poor immigrant people. We were broke, nested to you. Take a look at this picture here. Me, mom, dad, 10 brothers and sisters have to live in a little bit of tantalitis. Thank God that I developed this unique system to make millions in real estate stacking from nothing. As a result, we became financially independent. Can you tell us what exactly is your secret formula? The secret formula to success? I would say three little words. Three little words. Okay, what are they? Before I tell the three little words, I want to show you the power of these three little words.

Okay, standby Tom, motivational training in five, four, three, two. Today, I am going to show you how to buy real estate in America. In front of you is Shay. Shay is a good candidate because she doesn't know much about real estate. And I will show her exactly what to do. Shay, America is a changing world today. In one state, it may go down in value, the other state may go up in value. Now, would you please look at the camera and tell people what you've learned so far? The key to buying real estate in America is to be selective. Do your homework and set it up on the local market. You don't want to buy anything blindly. Very good, very good. Can you tell the people the reason so they understand? No. I like the investment in bad economy.

So I think the best time is right now. Look at the real estate situation in America. A lot of bankruptcy for closure. Every time the mass losing money, somebody is making money. The key for you to make some quick cash using my system is to buy property from distressed people who have to sell quickly, like for closure. I've got this nagging feeling. I think Tom's got my house on his list of distressed properties. Something way to spot these good deals. Come and I are the same generation. He seems older than me. Then he's lived through a war. All the time I was a teenager dreaming the east is red. Tom Wu was in refugee camps dreaming that the west is green. Greenback's green. We got the damn cash to close the deal. And we can close the deal from right away and they say no. Well, I finally learned the three secret words to success.

The Tom Wu mantra. Don't give up. He may need it. Apparently Tom is being investigated by the Florida State Attorney's Office. So much for the profit of profit. Well, while I was in prison, I was up there seven times. When I come back home, I heard a baby cry. It ain't got a hard feel. Yeah, I think that a hard feel. I drive through the hard land to Duluth, Minnesota. We're chunking Chinese food got its start. Who made it? An Italian immigrant named Gina Palucci. The man who created a world where Italian, Chinese, and Mexican food could live together in frozen harmony.

Now tell me, how in the world does an Italian immigrant become America's egg roll king? Well, at least you took your name off your coat. That was the little pushy. When I go to the Palucci building, there's no Gino inside. I expect egg rolls. Instead, I happen upon a group of garment workers. The women here are refugees from the Mung Hill tribe of Laos. And that's how I meet Panku Yang. She studies English during her coffee breaks. Where are you riding? Oh, Dad. More, more Dad. Me, your, your buddy, or a baby, sometimes getting yellow. Dad. But Dad. Is this?

This is my son, Chu. Chu Yang. And this is, but he's the second boy. And this is a own, own Yang. And this is Jerry Yang and Tom Yang. You know who Tom and Jerry is? In the cartoon? For the cat and mouse. Which one of you is a cat? Which one of you is a mouse? In the cat. This is the United States. The United States of America. 50 states are in our land. And they're all joined as one. There are crowded states with many industries. And other states with open spaces. There are people here from the world over. With many million different faces. This is the United States. The United States of America. 50 states are in our land.

And they're all joined as one. And they're all joined as one. These days, things are looking better for the Yangs. Although they spend most of their 12 years here on welfare, John Kuh has managed to find full-time work with a sewing factory. It's Joanne in a polka-dotted black dress from Taylor's fine batches. It turns out that Mr. Yang fought alongside Americans during the Vietnam War. He's just been laid off from a job at a spaghetti sauce factory. In Laos, Mr. Yang would be the breadwinner. But in America, it's his wife who has a job. Well, it's not easy. It's difficult. You know, it's 1980.

I come from United States. I never know to write my name. It's difficult. Can you tell me what you're watching in the video? Yeah, watching TV is just watching for my country from Laos. Because I miss my country. You miss it? Yes. Are you a soldier for the United States? I was a soldier for the United States about 11 years. It's working for the American soldier. How old were you when you started as a soldier for the US? It was 15. What kind of skills do you have for work? I skill only, you know, the farmer and soldier. This is the clothes when we live in Laos every day.

So here I am thinking of asking Panku about all the identity questions that have been plaguing me through my journey. But to tell you the truth, I'm embarrassed to bring it up. Do you have the clothes you for your wedding? Yes, I do. What Panku talks to me about is survival. Other than that, she knows who she is and where she comes from. It's easy to wear. When you wear, you just put it like that. Panku shows me a quilt she made of the closing days of the Vietnam War. And the mouse with my army came to our village and tried to kill my husband. How did you escape?

Just escaped from the jungle at night, quietly, nobody talking. Because we teach them that if you yell or you cry, then everybody must be killed. And they pray too, and they quiet. But they're small, they don't know. And they cry. I find out that four of Panku's children died in Laos. The last baby died of Jondus. In the Hmong language, Moda. When I walk to the store, when I walk to the bus stop, and they always chasing and throwing a rug, we didn't know how to speak English. But I know exactly they said, they said, Chinese, go back to your country.

Don't come to our country. I think they thought that most people in our Chinese people, Vietnam and Cambodia, we are the same people. And they didn't like it. This face, even though it's Chinese American, that is my folks came from South China, you could say, he's a Korean or he's Vietnamese or he is a Japanese. I mean, they couldn't tell the difference. But in this last century, there's three wars shot in the Far East, the war with Japan, the war with the Koreans, in which the Chinese were also involved, the war with Vietnam. I think most Americans think of it as just one huge war with Asia. And so they're used to thinking about this face, even subconsciously as their enemy.

. . . Traveling through America can take your breath away, but it can break your heart at the same time.

I know every town I pass through was capable of its hatred and bigotry. We have this breaking news for you right now. A complete disaster right now and downtown Oklahoma City. Some sort of explosion has ripped through the Alfred Murrow Bill. It seems like Americans just don't know who other Americans are anymore. There was in fact a big incident we understand. It's just devastating that it's happened anywhere but especially in our backyard. You're in America's heart. But as sure as there's hatred, I've also seen the side of us that embraces the stranger in every town, in every color. I began this journey searching for what it means to be an Asian-American. I realize now at the same time I'm searching for America, my America. And I wonder where this journey will take me next.

One day I took a look and you know what I found. I was the only Asian about 400 miles around. Guess I'm gonna get me a big cowboy hat. Learn to play baseball with the bat. Best in a pair of fancy jogging shoes. I can get rid of these only China men in Great Falls, Montana. I'm in Seattle to meet Mike and Raphael Park, aka the Soul Brothers. Born in Seoul, Korea. I hear they've developed quite a reputation as local authorities, as well as rappers. And where the park brothers go, trouble follows. I remember one time I was at Dick's Drive-In, which is a burger place. And his drunk white dude comes into place with his friends talking about

Look at all these fucking Asians around here, right? I was basically plugging this guy all upside the head, right? And you know, I got both his eyes, man. He looked like a bug man or something like that, right? And then both his nostrils were bleeding, his lips were fatter than Mick Jagger. I find out that Mr. and Mrs. Park were college sweethearts in Korea. Like thousands of young Koreans, they made their way to America. It was soon after the birth of their first child, the son who would come to be known as Psycho Mike MC. I wonder where I should call them. The sole parents? Sometimes he seems to support the violence in order to achieve justice. But I don't agree with him.

Before you try to use violence as a rest resort, you have to do everything possible. You can do to prevent the violence first. You know, I mean, the day of turning the other cheek and turning the other way when someone's attacking you and all this stuff, you know, we're through with that. Like any means necessary. I mean, if someone's going to attack me, you know, I'm going to smack him back. That's right. We are going to go to church and, you know, enjoy. You can go to church, okay? But 10 o'clock? 10 o'clock. Why don't you offer anything you have, you know, to them? Or the pizzas, okay. Maybe we're going to Ying's driving or something like that, you know? I used to tell you. But I don't mind it. I heard you mind it. I heard you mind it. Don't cry, man. It's just an idea. Stupid lyric. I wrote a new rhyme. You call it just like honey? It's like, you know, because a lot of people, they, you know, they don't look at Asian men.

It's like sex symbols and stuff. So that's what I wrote this rhyme about, just like honey. It's a little bit more on that tip. Why, man? You about to, one of the best-looking ages, I know. You know, that's right. Yeah. Don't eat it all. That's the thing. That's the thing. Yo, here's a taste of something delicious. And by the way, it's also nutritious. Not made for the ease of the child. Before the ladies to go buck wild. You see, the rhyme is like Kentucky fried chicken. So get in with me. Huh. I'm finger-licking. I'm here today to kick some flavor. And to the ladies, I'm like a lifesaver. A sweet tizzy roll. I last a long time. Give me a minute and I'll make your mind. I bet you never thought about a lover that's Asian. Getting cozy with a yellow persuasion. Maybe you heard something about a small dick. But I'll tell you now that that's bullshit. If you don't believe, follow me home. And find out on your own that I'm full grown. It's good loving what you need. Well, I'll give you a satisfaction guarantee.

Like a gourmet meal. Taste the yummy. Huh. I'm just like honey. I high-tailed down to California just in time for the annual Winter Blossom Debbie Tonkball. It's one of the most important times of your life. It's standing up there and doing a curtsy in front of all of your friends and your parents. It's just sort of sort of as a good marker for where Chinese Americans are coming in society. And sort of like, we'll have a lot of respect for the guild for saying if we can't have a big charity ball and a big fundraiser and a big Debbie Tonkball with Caucasians, we'll just have one of our own. My daughter Michelle is one of Debbie Tonk's time.

I take great delight in introducing her tonight. She has won the Miss Asian talent contest in some French school. And also won the first place in the Seven High School Art competition. She pre-piano, she pretend she's a member of the drill team and very active in volleyball. The Deb Ball is meant for parents to introduce their daughters to society and a few nice Chinese boys in the process. But I'm sensing tension. You see, only Chinese escorts are allowed. Yet, guys are complaining that some of the Deb's don't even have Chinese boyfriends. She's a freshman in Notre Dame University.

She's an accomplished ballroom dancer and was a featured conference speaker on Asian gender issues. Is it true none of you have Chinese boyfriends? I think there are some with Chinese boyfriends and there's some with non-Chinese boyfriends. Does it really matter to anybody? I don't think so. I don't think it makes a difference. The boys really thought it mattered a lot. I mean, just for example, I've met some Asian women who will say things like, I would never go out with the nation guy. Never. I only date white guys. Speaking of that, my latest article, he has his own column in the UW Daily Ageatic Static. His latest article was about the white male fantasy. You know, just about how Asian women have been characterized as being a submissive, exotic, erotic, and Asian men are usually stereotyped as being, you know, kind of short, unmanly, childlike. You already have a boyfriend?

I'm on the end section of some of a relationship. Yeah. Is he Chinese? No, he's white. Somehow, when I was going out with him, I felt like maybe I was better than some Asian women. It's not something that I'd admit to, you know, but I think now that I'm stepping away from that relationship, it was there. You know, I somehow thought I was better. And John, somehow, I don't want to speak for him, but sort of liked the idea of having an Asian girl friend and sort of thought one upsmanship on the Asian men who couldn't get me a quote unquote. I don't get the sense that these two have any trouble finding girlfriends.

I have a feeling the problem isn't politics. More likely, it's mom. That means like, you know, we get a girlfriend or something. And then, you know, if we're with the same girl for more than three months, she starts riffing, you know. She starts, like, tripping out. She starts worrying because then she starts talking, you know, she starts thinking that we're going to get married or something like that. Why is she worried because you're too young? Well, I think she's really picky, you know. And like, no girl is good enough for her sons. 99.9% of the girls that we date will not pass the mom test. What are her criteria? Only mom knows her criteria. That's the mom test. They got past the mom test. And no girl that has ever stepped into this household has the mom test. He's my guy. I don't care what he does.

Cause he's my guy. I guess they always was. For nobody knows. It's just sort of sort of as a good marker for where Chinese Americans are coming in society. The day of turning the other cheek and turning the other way when someone's attacking you and all this stuff, you know, we're through with that. I always thought as I was growing up, that as an Asian American, I really had to write my own manual as to how to live in this country. I miss until I die. For nobody knows. Better than I.

But he's my guy. Do you have good or bad memories of your father? No, I didn't have very good memories in my father. He was from another world. He was totally Chinese. He lived and died in just 10 square blocks. I grew up and eventually wanted to be an American that is these things here, you know. I wanted to take with me and add it to America. He's just like his father. That's what so, and his father broke their hearts. Because his father would go down the street in Chinatown and he would meet the kids who wouldn't speak to them in the street. He was a mess.

And Victor, anyway, none of them. Because I was only married to Victor seven years. And of course, he didn't really support the children after the divorce. Why not? Because he felt that if I divorced him, that was my problem. So you know how kids are with your parents. It's no matter what they are, they're normal. You accept them. And my kids love Victor, they adore him. They don't judge him or anything. That's Victor. But they suffer. They suffer terribly from it. I personally was just too childish. As I reflect on it, it's strange. I treated them like my father treated my mother. You know, very in the old traditional Chinese way. This was terrible. I realize everything may not boil down to culture.

Sometimes it's the accidents of fate, or it could be the choices you make. Victor reminds me of some flawed Buddha wandering the earth. At least his small piece of the earth. Victor's been my roadmap to Asian America's past. Now I'm looking for some direction to the future. I catch a demonstration at UCLA. Some people call it the University of Caucasians lost among Asians. I meet Elisa Kang, who I describe as a new Asian-American voice.

I was a registered Republican. Yeah, in high school, I registered Republican. It was pretty much like a nerd. She stayed to herself, and she can really interact with the Korean American I'm serious. But now she's all, that's true. Elisa tells me her mom raised her alone. And I get the sense she's adopted a second family here in Koreatown. There's something about Elisa that reminds me of me. But my anger was fired by the wartime internment camps. Elisa's family probably remembers the war for the brutality of the Japanese military, not for what happened to Japanese Americans. And Elisa had to grow up faster in a far tougher world than I did. What's your dad think about all your activities?

I haven't talked to my father since high school. And basically, I don't really have any kind of connection or relationship with him. My parents operated when I was the second grade. And so he's been absent out of my life pretty much since then. And I remember my mother and my grandmother, my mother's mother, being very upset when he left. But I was basically standing up and looking at them, asking them, why are you crying? You should be glad that he's leaving. And I'm sure he heard me saying that. He was a very evil person. And it's probably better that he left in our lives. Like what would he do? Now, he was this abusive to my mother. You know, he would hit her and stuff. I think for at least a lot of Asian families, I know the bad stuff. You're not supposed to talk about it or really. But I think that's a problem because I think it's important to talk about these problems. I think one of the reasons why they've escalated so is because people have been trying to hide them. It could be you simply have to leave your family behind. And all their old ways of thinking.

On Ocean Beach, I made Moderi Rosemary Anji. In America, she's known as Mads. Mads tells me she's a lesbian woman, a liberal Indian, and a conservative German. I was born approximately there, which was in Dresden and East Germany at that point of time. From there, we immigrated to India, which would mean we flew all the way across down to nearly the southern tip of India. My mother is German. My father is Indian. The other one is of my father and my sister, smelling the flowers. Hold some family. On top is my father and my mother getting married. What would I say when I come onto my parents? I'm pretty sure the topic of marriage is going to come up, because it has cropped up recently. My sister is too old to get married.

Apparently, she's 36. And then yes, she's too old to get married. My brother just got married, and now I'm next. Mads and her friends are here to celebrate a Hindu festival called Holy. That's Holy with an eye. Hey, Mads, what is Holy? As far as I know, no one really knows, but it's essentially the welcoming of spring, the burning of winter, fertility in a agricultural sense, how can there's some color in just welcoming life in general? And it's also a really nice way to get your hands on people. So when I go back home,

I will look at him and I will say the reason I'm not getting married is because I am gay, and my father will most probably not know what that means. So I am going to have to explain it to him. A queer South Asian, me. A queer South Asian, I was a German in India. And when it was in Germany, I was an Indian in Germany, because of my skin color, because of the way I looked, because of my hair. So I was always treated as a foreigner in a country where I thought I wasn't. So I figured I might as well come to a country where I am a foreigner, you know? And not necessarily be treated as a foreigner. According to the call, 49.59% of Californians voted for our property in 187. 59% of Californians voted in support of racism. Immigrant fasting and scapegoating. Well, you know what's the same as that? Pulsed it, because we are the Californians. We are the worst.

This call is supposedly representing. What does your mother say to all of this? She kind of doesn't know that I'm so involved. Yeah, I mean, she knew, I mean before I kind of told her some stuff, but then because of my academics, she made me promise that I would quit. So I kind of lie and said, I'll stop, but I've been actually, you know, I've still been as involved, maybe even more so. Not deportation! Not deportation! If you start struggling against a police officer, you take the risk of basically getting a greater amount of police repression back at you. What's going on? You get to stay until you get arrested. Until you get arrested. My mother kind of knows what it is to be gay, because before I came to San Francisco, she told me to be aware of all those gay people, little that you know that her daughter was gay. They're going to be hurt.

They're going to be confused. But I know that they love me a whole lot, and I love them a whole lot too. And I know that given a little bit of time, they're going to be completely accepting of it. I want to explain to her that a lot of things I do is for, you know, is for her, is for the empowerment, for the Korean community. Her life, I think, has always been a struggle. And, you know, she went to night school. Yeah, everything, basically, I think, is she works and does everything for me. I never really thought about it until recently, but even people like my mom are my heroes and heroines, because they face incredible obstacles when they come to foreign countries, like the US. But yet, they manage to feed us and clothe us and put us through higher education. So what is it that Alisa, Matt,

and all the Asian Americans have in common? Well, we all eat rice. I know it's not cool to say, but we all know it's true. And we re-invent family wherever we go, no matter how far from home. Hello, everybody. Here we come. Bitcher is now married to his fourth wife, Nancy. Hi, baby girl. He's had five children and all, and now a new grandchild. Where's Vanessa coming? Oh, hello. It's a Chinese custom to bring a red envelope full of money for the new baby. Imagine Victor, the old beatnik, following Chinese customs. This is for Alisa.

Well, this is for my Chinese side. This is for my English side. I'll tell them what it really represents. It's our family dragon. It's our family dragon. It's like our crest. We all got these family dragons. Well, I got a first one named. My father's name, my name, our last name. Why don't you pose next to Sarking? So we can see the result. Oh, you have put your face thick to that to show. It's incredible. Really? I don't know. Look. Victor spent a life rebelling against the traditions of his father. But I think what really got to him was his father's refusal to change. Because in the end, it's tradition that sustained Victor when it came to his own children. All your brothers and sisters, they look like your mother. I think your face is shaped. Well, the closest I was was to the one who died. He was killed here in the streets by a bunch of gangs. His name was Lion. When Lion was in the third grade,

he was nine years old, having trouble with his mother. And he wanted to live with me. So it was kind of blattering me to myself. Because this is the first child as for me. I would ask him, you know, give me three things, you know. Like silver spoon and a river or whatever this. And I would tell him stories that I wouldn't make up, you know. As he was falling asleep. So I tried my best so that when I lost him, it was terrible, terrible thing. I think to the Chinese death is never somebody going to heaven.

The spirits are always around. It's surrounded by all the members of my family. And I imagine he's with my great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my mother. Then telling him all about what life should be like. How I wonder where you are. So someday I'll join him. I'll spend the rest of my eternity just talking about things. Death brought Victor back to his family. Maybe it's how my journey really began. Now that I'm on my way home, it's a street where my own brother Bobby was killed by a hidden run driver.

When he was about the same age as Lion. Bobby was just starting out too, a musician and activist. You know, my mother never put up a shrine for Bobby as you see in Asian homes. But she does keep all his grateful debt t-shirts in vintage condition. Not a variation like thing to do, or is it? I no longer fear being like my parents. Now I'm worried I'll never be as good as they are. My parents. As I get older, my folks seem to be getting younger. They're taking dancing lessons and my dads grow in a beard and long hair and back. When it gets long enough to be a ponytail, I think I'll scream. A year after Bobby died, my parents seem to take up where he left off.

They testified in public about the internment camps. So what happened to them will never happen to another group of Americans. They raised their voices and made trouble following in the footsteps of their trouble making children. Not a variation like thing to do, or is it? My journey's over and I start thinking about a family of my own. And guess what? I even got married. I know you've got to be wondering about the sociocultural implications of my marrying a Mexican-American. But for once, I can't think of anything to say. Wow, here they come.

Oh, we will go in a couple. Let's see. And of course, someday I'll pack my kids in the car and take them out on the road. Still as magnificent to me today as I was looking out for my dad's old form. Now if someone asked me where I came from, I tell them I was born in Chicago and raised in Asian America. I've realized the question is not how people become real Americans, but how America has become its people. We are its people.

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