Films with: Chin, Michael

American experience.

One of the most-recognized figures in American literary history: poet, patriot, and faithful advocate of democracy. But in his own time, critics denounced Walt Whitman as a "lunatic raving in pitiable delirium". This "American experience" production tells Whitman's life story, from his working class childhood in Long Island to his years as a newspaper reporter in Brooklyn when he struggled to support his impoverished family, then to his reckless pursuit of the attention and affection he craved for his work, to his death in 1892 at the age of 72.

DVD 11973

Beyond Brown pursuing the promise /

Explores the legacy and impact of Brown vs. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision ending legal segregation in American education.

DVD 9508

Buffalo Bill

This film presents a portrait of the man who made the American West into the American story. For most Americans in the mid-1800s, the Wild West existed only in dime novels, but a young man from Kansas who had roamed the prairies in the war with the Plains Indians came to embody the picaresque frontier hero. As the frontier was rapidly disappearing, he realized he could market his life as entertainment, and millions around the world would pay for a taste of his Wild West. Tall, handsome, confident, and charismatic, he blurred the line between truth and entertainment, history and myth. Thus was a mere plainsman turned into an international celebrity and frontier hero, his meteoric rise to fame made possible by his genius and hucksterism. His name was William Cody, but the world remembers him as Buffalo Bill.

DVD 10366

Chinese Exclusion Act

Examine the origin, history and impact of the 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already here ever to become U.S. citizens. The first in a long line of acts targeting the Chinese for exclusion, it remained in force for more than 60 years.

DVD 13138

Égalité for all Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution /

The Haitian Revolution represents the only successful slave revolution in history; it created the world's first Black republic. At the forefront of the rebellion was General Toussaint Louverture, an ex-slave whose genius was admired by allies and enemies alike.

DVD 10158

First person plural

"In 1966, Deann Borshay Liem was adopted by an American family and was sent from Korea to her new home. Growing up in California, the memory of her birth family was nearly obliterated until recurring dreams led Borshay Liem to discover the truth: her Korean mother was very much alive. Bravely uniting her biological and adoptive families, filmmaker Borshay Liem's heartfelt journey makes FIRST PERSON PLURAL a poignant essay on family, loss, and the reconciling of two identities"--Container.

DVD 8902

In the matter of Cha Jung Hee

"Her passport said she was Cha Jung Hee. She knew she was not. So began a 40 year deception for a Korean adoptee who came to the US in 1966. Told to keep her true identity a secret from her new American family, this 8 year old girl quickly forgot she was ever anyone else. But why had her identity been switched? And who was the real Cha Jung Hee? In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee is the search to find the answers, as acclaimed filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem (First person plural, PBS 2000) returns to her native Korea to find her "double," the mysterious girl whose place she took in America. As seen on PBS on the award-winning series, Point of View (POV)"--Container.

DVD 8232