Evokes the trauma of escape and the history of resettlement of some 800,000 Southeast Asian refugees. Produced by the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center, this 12-minute video offers indelible images of a flight to freedom that was facilitated by the many grassroots mutual assistance associations (MAA’s) that were established in the United States to help refugees transition from their past to the future. The video offers a chronology of events that covers the fall of Saigon, the escape of Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians to Thailand, exodus by boat and airplane, and passage in the U.S. of the Refugee Act of 1980 and the Indochinese Refugee Assistance and Protection Act of 1987. Following the closing of refugee camps in 1990, thousands of Southeast Asians began coming to the U.S. as immigrants. They overcame language and cultural barriers, intergenerational conflict, and prejudice to establish themselves as entrepreneurs and professionals and to declare themselves Americans. Dedicated to both the refugees and their sponsors, this video recounts the journey of people seeking to make peace with the horror they escaped and the way of life they lost.
