Dancing in Their Light

My film series project intends to illuminate the vast, positive, and little known contributions of my family of Chinese immigrants in the United States as they assimiliated into a country that did not always welcome them. Juxtaposed against rising Asian hate, I want very much to dispel the narrative that the Chinese people/Asians are the enemy here in the United States. In addition. I will highlight a fun and glorious era of the 1960's and 1970's when the proliferation of Polynesian nightclubs were ubiquitious - using stories of my family's successful restaurant/nightclub which was the community basecamp for a weekly gathering of a cast of characters ranging from the mob, nuns, celebrities, sports figures, politicians, powerful union and local business leaders. The centrality of radical hospitality is a key theme which I hope will foster a revolution for nostalgia.