Resilience, ingenuity, creativity. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have enriched America’s history, society and culture and are instrumental to our past, present and future. This month, and every month, NEPM celebrates the wide array of values, beliefs and traditions and AAPI communities' extraordinary impact on our national identity. Explore these stories throughout the month on NEPM.
Asian Americans
Watch Thursdays, May 2 – 30 at 10 p.m. on NEPM TV
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Asian Americans is a five-part film series that delivers a bold perspective on a history that matters today, more than ever. As America becomes more diverse, and more divided while facing unimaginable challenges, how do we move forward together? Told through intimate personal stories, the series will cast a new lens on U.S. history and the ongoing role that Asian Americans have played.
Local, USA
A Tale of Three Chinatowns
Watch Monday, May 6, at 8 p.m. on NEPM WORLD
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A Tale of Three Chinatowns explores the survival of urban ethnic neighborhoods in three American cities: Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Boston. Through the voices of residents, community activists, developers, and government officials, the film looks at the forces altering each community and the challenges that go with them, including the pressing issue of urban development and gentrification.
The Story of China with Michael Wood
Watch Sundays, May 5 – 19 at 12 p.m. on NEPM TV
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Travel from the Silk Road to the Yellow Sea with host Michael Wood as he explores the history of the world’s newest superpower. A thrilling and moving epic of the world’s oldest continuous state with the landscapes, peoples, and stories that made today’s China.
Armed with Language
Watch Thursday, May 9 at 9 p.m. on NEPM TV
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Minnesota was home to a little-known military intelligence school during WWII that trained Japanese Americans be to translators. Primarily recruited from concentration camps on the West Coast, these men and women, served while many of their families remained imprisoned. For their efforts it is said that they “shortened the Pacific War by two years and saved possibly a million American lives.”
Independent Lens: The Donut King
Watch Monday, May 13 at 7:30 p.m. on NEPM WORLD
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An immigrant story with a (glazed) twist, The Donut King follows the journey of Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy, who arrived in California in the 1970s and, through a mixture of diligence and luck, built a multi-million dollar donut empire up and down the West Coast.
Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story
Watch Monday, May 13 at 10 p.m.on NEPM TV
Using his camera as a “weapon against injustice,” Chinese American photographer Corky Lee’s art is his activism. His unforgettable images of Asian American life empowered generations. This film’s intimate portrait reveals the triumphs and tragedies of the man behind the lens.
Rising Against Asian Hate: One Day in March
Watch Friday, May 24 at 7 p.m. on NEPM WORLD
Following the aftermath of the March 2021 mass shootings at three spas in Atlanta, this film chronicles how the Asian American community came together to fight back against hate and explores the struggles and triumphs of AAPI communities.
American Masters
Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir
Watch Saturday, May 25 at 8 p.m. on NEPM WORLD
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The story of the author whose first novel, “The Joy Luck Club,” was published to great commercial and critical success. With the blockbuster film adaption that followed as well as additional best-selling novels, librettos, short stories and memoirs, Tan firmly established herself as one of the most prominent and respected American literary voices working today.
American Masters
Waterman – Duke: Ambassador of Aloha
Watch Monday, May 27 at 7:30 p.m. on NEPM WORLD
Available with NEPM Passport
Narrated by Jason Momoa, discover the inspiring story and considerable impact of five-time Olympic medalist Duke Kahanamoku. He shattered swimming records and globalized surfing while overcoming racism in a lifetime of personal challenges.
STREAM
Fanny: The Right to Rock
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Sometime in the late 1960s, in sunny Sacramento, two Filipina American sisters — June Millington, Jean Millington — got together with other teenage girls to play music. Little did they know their garage band would evolve into the groundbreaking rock group Fanny, the first all-women band to release an LP with a major record. And here’s the local angle: June Millington is the Artistic Director of Institute for the Musical Arts in Goshen.
American Masters
Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV
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See the world through the eyes of Nam June Paik, the father of video art and coiner of the term “electronic superhighway.” Born in Japan-occupied Korea, Paik went on to become a pillar of the American avant-garde and transformed modern image-making with his sculptures, films and performances. Experience his creative evolution, as Academy Award nominee Steven Yeun reads from Paik's own writings.
America Reframed: First Vote
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With unparalleled access to a diverse cross section of politically engaged Chinese Americans, First Vote offers a character-driven verité look at Chinese American electoral organizing in North Carolina and Ohio. The film weaves their stories from the presidential election of 2016 to the 2018 midterms, and explores the intersections between immigration, voting rights and racial justice
American Experience: Plague at the Golden Gate
Discover how an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900 set off fear and anti-Asian sentiment in San Francisco. This new documentary tells the gripping story of the race against time by health officials to save the city from the deadly disease.