| Movie Review | The Journal of American History, 91.3

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| Movie Review | The Journal of American History, 91.3 | The History Cooperative

Movie Reviews

Becoming American: The Chinese Experience. Prod. by Public Affairs Television, 2003. 3 parts, 89 mins. each. (Films for the Humanities and Sciences, Box 2053, Princeton, NJ 08543-2053; 800-257-5126; <custserv@films.com>; <www.films.com> [Sept. 13, 2004])

In Becoming American: The Chinese Experience, Bill Moyers and a team of filmmakers offer a historical account of a fast-growing yet largely overlooked American ethnic group. The three-part documentary chronicles the Chinese American experience from the California gold rush to the present day. Part 1, "Gold Mountain Dreams," explores the journey of pioneering Chinese immigrants who set sail across the Pacific Ocean to strike it rich. On the American frontier, Chinese immigrants mined gold, laid tracks for the western leg of the transcontinental railroad, sweated on farms and in small factories, and took jobs white men found undesirable. In the late nineteenth century, an anti-Chinese movement rose unexpectedly. In 1882 Chinese laborers and their families were prohibited from entering the United States, and Chinese immigrants were legally categorized as aliens ineligible for citizenship. Part 2 of the film, "Between Two Worlds," illuminates how Chinese immigrants struggled to survive during the period of Chinese exclusion (1882–1943). The anti-Chinese campaign was overwhelming, and laws against them were harsh, but exclusion was hardly a complete success. The film describes how the Chinese utilized the U.S. judicial system to challenge discriminatory laws and how they exploited loopholes in the laws to circumvent exclusion. World War II was a turning point in Chinese American history. When Chinese Americans joined the armed forces and defense industries, their public image began to change. In 1943, exclusion acts were repealed, and the War Brides Act of 1945 made family members of Chinese American war veterans eligible for entry into the United States. The closing episode celebrates the triumph of Chinese Americans after 1965. As a new immigration act and the civil rights movement removed legal restrictions on Chinese immigration, the Chinese population in the United States increased dramatically, and a successful ethnic minority group emerged.

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