Directed by Larissa Lam and produced by Baldwin Chiu, Far East Deep South premieres on the WORLD Channel (PBS) documentary series America ReFramed on Tuesday, May 4, 2021, 8:00 p.m. ET (check local listings). It will also be available to stream on WORLDchannel.org, PBS.org and the PBS Video app beginning at time of broadcast on May 4 and throughout May in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
As America currently deals with a rash of anti-Asian sentiment, Far East Deep South is a deeply moving story that offers a poignant perspective on race relations, immigration and the deep roots of Chinese Americans in our national identity. The award-winning documentary follows Charles Chiu and his family (including his son, producer Baldwin Chiu, and daughter-in-law, director Larissa Lam) as they travel from California to Mississippi to find answers about Charles’ father, K.C. Lou. A retired Air Force reservist, Charles was left behind in China as a baby and is reluctant to discuss his family’s complicated past with his sons, Baldwin and Edwin. The family’s emotional journey to a place they’ve never seen leads to stunning revelations and a crash course on the surprising history of Chinese immigrants in the segregated South. Through encounters with local residents who remember K.C., as well as interviews with historians, Congresswoman Judy Chu and others,
the family’s trip becomes a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for discovery and healing.
Through the Chiu’s family story, Far East Deep South provides a window into a community few even know exists — Chinese immigrants in the Deep South — and reveals how exclusionary immigration laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 separated their family for generations. The family also learns about the symbiotic relationship between the Southern Black and Chinese communities during the Jim Crow era.
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