Students Featured

Created for AAS 171: Film and Video.

Tower, by Tria Moua
Preface: Tower is about my mother’s different identities that she was forced to balance even in the midst of the Secret War and the Vietnam War. Her journey and choices she made as a womyn and the ongoing journey of finding my OWN identity as a womyn. Not viewing her JUST as my mother, but respecting her story and the value of her “love” (expressed implicitly as “worrying”) as a womyn, a Hmong womyn, human being, daughter, etc…all of these identities that she had..even BEFORE being my mother. Questioning this “love” beyond the love of a mother.

My hope is that this short film will serve to problematize the idea of the American Dream; to differentiate between immigrants and refugees; to highlight the generational gap and the ever-present transgenerational trauma; transnational families and flirting with the idea of separation; to hint at the idea of history versus/with memory; to question the idea of female submissiveness juxtaposed “having a choice;” and finally to explore the idea of love and what love can transcend, overcome, and build.

The metaphor of “Tower” is one woven throughout the film and could be interpreted in different ways, but I’d rather leave this up to the interpretation of the viewers.

Identity: Asian American Bboy, by Jon Song and Ryan Tanouye

Analysis of Jackie Chan’s “The Tuxedo,” by Peter Ngyuen

This is Stephanie Ge's "alternative book cover" for Erin Ninh's Ingratitude -- a creative project for Professor Sau-ling Wong's summer course on "'Tiger Mothers' and Mothers: Parenting in Asian American Literature."