On this episode of the Popzara Podcast our own transcontinental editor-at-large Evelyn “Ev” Wong talks with film-making couple Larissa Lam and Baldwin Chiu, the producing and directing team behind Far East Deep South, a new documentary about the surprises of discovering one’s own heritage and what it truly means to be American.
Those who grew up without a father in their lives often feel as if a piece of themselves were missing. That’s exactly how Charles Chiu felt. But when his family convinces him to try and locate his dad’s cemetery plot, it takes them on an adventure to the unlikeliest of places. Armed with a single photo and the name of a Mississippi city, Chiu discovers the roots of his family tree extend from their ancestral homeland in China and became deeply embedded in the American south.
With a million-in-one chance of finding any links to their heritage, the Chiu family soon uncover more than they could have wished for. Larissa, Baldwin, and Ev learn what it truly means to be Asian in the world (both yesterday and today), the importance of understanding where you came from, and how assumptions about certain perspectives aren’t always right.
