#7 TRAIN + CHINATOWN + TOURIST BUSES GO HOME!
Hye Jung Park & J.T. Takagi THE # 7 TRAIN: AN IMMIGRANT JOURNEY 1999, 28 min, DCP Every day 500,000 people from 117 different countries ride a subway that runs from Flushing to Times Square, going through Queens, the most culturally diverse region in the United States. This documentary follows four immigrant passengers: a Korean who works in Harlem, two Otavalen street vendors who work near Chinatown, and a gay Pakistani sari salesman on Fifth Avenue. Their lives and their conflicted relationships with the city and its other residents are juxtaposed with the subway they take each day to Manhattan and their dreams for the future. Jon Alpert & Keiko Tsuno CHINATOWN: IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA 1980, 27 min, DCP "Produced in response to what DCTV felt were inaccurate media portrayals of New York City's Chinatown, this award-winning, often startling portrait of an immigrant community probes beneath the tourist's-eye view to uncover the complexity of an inner-city subculture plagued by poverty and exploitation. 'This is the story of our neighbors,' says Alpert. His sympathetic 'reportage from within' reveals kitchen workers earning less than $100 for sixty-hour weeks, rents that are among the highest in the city, and garment workers laboring for minimum wages in unsafe conditions. Focusing on individual stories to expose broader issues, this is an unflinching document of Asian immigrants under pressure to assimilate into mainstream culture and struggling to survive in America." –ELECTRONIC ARTS INTERMIX Tom Tam TOURIST BUSES GO HOME! 1969, 10 min, DCP In this short film – one of the earliest examples of Asian American experimental film – Tom Tam follows the activism and protests against tours of Manhattan's Chinatown.