Curated by Joni Clayton, Acquisitions Assistant

We’ve curated a list of films that celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Month. Enjoy! 

Because of You, I Am | 2023
Duration: 30 minutes

PJ & Roy Hirabayashi spent over five decades using the drum as a platform to catalyze social change, build community from the ground up, and champion a new category of Asian American music despite facing the unrelenting challenges of anti-Asian hate.

Between the Lines | 2001
Duration: 60 minutes

This film offers rare interviews with over 15 major Asian-Pacific American women poets. Organized in interwoven sections such as Immigration, Language, Family, Memory, and Spirituality, it is a sophisticated merging of Asian-American history and identity with the questions of performance, voice, and image.

Breaking the Model: Stories of Asian American History and Presence | 2022
Duration: 47 minutes

This collection of films brings together four different short documentaries exploring immigration, genealogy, gentrification and resilience within America.

Conquest of Hawaii | 2003
Duration: 89 minutes

This program takes a broad view of the watershed moments in Hawaiian history, from discovery, to first contact with outsiders, to unification of the islands into a sovereign kingdom, to an act of war that led to Hawaii’s annexation by the United States.  Hawaii’s ancient culture reemerges as a powerful sociopolitical force in the 21st century.

Golden Gate Girls | 2014
Duration: 90 minutes

This documentary paints a fascinating picture of how Esther Eng’s career in filmmaking broke through gender and racial boundaries in Hollywood and Hong Kong, at a time when opportunities for Chinese women in the industry were few and far between.

Jimmy Murakami: Non Alien | 2010
Duration: 74 minutes

Jimmy was only nine years old when his family had to quit their small farm to be imprisoned for four years for a crime of which they had no part in.  This film features six specially commissioned animation sequences based on Jimmy’s painting of life in the camp.  They create a powerful recreation of Jimmy and his family losing all their worldly goods as they were cast out of the American dream.

Somewhere Between | 2012
Duration: 88 minutes

This film explores the emotional and cultural impact of adoption from the point of view of four teenage girls, all adopted from China.