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Chinatown Files

Genre: Documentary

Ethnicity: Chinese American
Themes: History, Immigrant/Refugee Experience/Diaspora, Political/Legal Issues
Date: 2001
Running Time: 57 min.
Director: Amy Chen
Producers: Amy Chen, Ying Chan
Availability:
The Filmaker’s Library
http://filmakers.com/
124 East 40th Street
New York, NY 10016
(212) 808-4980
info@filmakers.com
Videocassette: $335 Purchase/$95 Rental

Third World Newsreel
www.twn.org
$335 Purchase/$95 Rental

  • Synopsis
  • Reviews
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Synopsis
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This documentary follows the stories of Chinese-Americans targeted during the McCarthy era of the 1950s and 1960s. Placing discrimination in this era in the context of the history of U.S. anti-Asian persecution, Chinatown Files uses home movies, photographs, archival films, and poignant first person narratives to show the extent of American paranoia and the victimization that resulted from anti-Communist sentiments.

Reviews
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Adams, Sam. “Screenpicks: The Chinatown Files.” City Paper. November 14, 2002.

Au, Christopher. “The Chinatown Files.” Tribes.

Dean, Kitty Chen. “The Chinatown Files: A Community’s Civil Rights Under Attack.” Library Journal. June 15, 2002.

Dick, Jeff. “The Chinatown Files.” The Booklist. March 15, 2002.

Kim, Ryan. “Keeping Tabs On Chinatown; Premiering documentary shows how Red Scare cast pall of suspicion on an entire community.” San Francisco Chronicle. Saturday, March 10, 2001.

Mong, Adrienne. “Loyalty Tests.” Far Eastern Economic Review. December 13, 2001.

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