Customer Reviews

A Bill Moyers Special "Becoming American" The Chinese Experience

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I want to start by thanking Bill Moyers for bringing this documentary to fruition, and that it was aired on PBS. It is very well narrated, and we, as an audience, get a true sense of the Chinese and Chinese-American experience in the United States, from the turbulent beginnings of immigration to "Golden Mountain" (California), where the Chinese came seeking a new opportunity in this country. (Part 1) We hear accounts of immigrants' experience building the railroad, the extreme injustice of the Chinese Exclusion Act that prevented Chinese men, who settled in the United States to work and send money back home, from bringing wives to this country. Also, due to miscygenation laws, it was illegal for them to marry and intermix with non-Asian (Caucasian women). The magnificent historical background leads all the way up to contemporary Chinese and Chinese-American experiences in the United States of today. (Part 3) Bill Moyers interviews the founder of Yahoo!, a successful doctor, and a writer who broke away from the mold set by her mother, who insisted she become either a doctor or a lawyer. The interview following the three part series, with Maya Lin, best known as the young architecture major who went on to design the Vietnam War Memorial, is excellent. What an inspiration!

This documentary should be viewed in high school and college classrooms alike. Informative, intelligent and even entertaining!!!!

I stumbled upon this documentary during the Spring semester of my sophmore year here at Sarah Lawrence College. I eagerly incorporated this three disk documentary into the independent project i was working on for an Asian Studies seminar. Without getting too too into why it moved me so, I'd like to commend the producers and Bill Moyers for re-asserting the invaluable histories and voices of the Chinese and Chinese-Americans. The scenes involving Helen Zia (bless her mightily) and her recounting her upbringing in a New Jersey Suburb, and her travelling to her father's China, were gorgeous.

As a 2nd generation Chinese-American I am grateful that at least a sliver of our past ('our' as both narrowly indicating Chinese/Chinese-Americans as well as a wider more inclusive pan-asian identity) is being revisted and respected.


It is unfortunate that the availability of this three dvd set isn't as readily on hand sicne it is more than worth wild to watch and learn from.

Bill Moyers and the writers paid wonderful tribute to and respectfully recounted the pain and gains of the native and immigrant Chinese. The narrative is well written and the speakers quite articulate. The three episodes closely mirrored the three phases of immigration: my parents' and grandparents immigration before 1950 and who tried to adopt American culture, the second wave of immigrants who didn't see the need to assimilate and deliberately kept to their own enclaves, and the new, highly educated wave that straddles both worlds. A must-see for anyone wanting to understand the American Chinese experience. I was glad the Vincent Chin tragedy was included--we must never forget how easy it is for prejudice to manifest itself to violence.

Although "Becoming American" is most relevant to Chinese Americans, it will maintain and even increase the interest of anyone sitting for a moment to watch it. There is a wealth of important information for the current generation of Chinese Americans to learn about the extreme hardships that early Chinese immigrants endured before flourishing in the United States. Yet anyone who has any bit of empathy for an immigrant undergoing adversity will undoubtedly begin to feel some of the pain and frustration that early Chinese American's felt.

Bill Moyers needs to be commended for his multi-faceted coverage of Chinese American history. His coverage will actually make some viewers realize that the contents of this documentary are still very relevant now. Racism can re-combust and it appears that it has already happened. There has been a lot of anti-Chinese and anti-Muslim sentiment looming. Apparently, the President of the United States is not immune either.

Unfortunately, this DVD set is out of print. I caught part of the documentary through a PBS station a couple of years ago when it was re-aired. A couple of months ago, I attempted to order the DVD set but my order was canceled because there was no inventory. Thankfully, I obtained the entire DVD set at a local library.

If you are even slightly interested in learning more on the subject of the documentary, borrow or rent the DVD or videotape at your local library and be sure your children see it.

I think this is the same 3-DVD disc set you can buy straight from PBS for $99. Usually Amazon is pretty price competitive, but almost double? What gives...