Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Sentenced Home

this past weekend, I went to an event at Asian Arts Initiative about the deportation of Cambodian refugees from America. they screened a very pertinent and moving documentary film, Sentenced Home, which you can watch here. the tagline: "Raised as Americans in inner-city projects near Seattle, three young Cambodian American men are deported back to a country they barely remember, caught between a tragic past and an uncertain future by a system that doesn't offer any second chances."

it's not necessarily an issue that receives much attention in the media, at least not so much outside of the sphere of Mexico, so the film offers some very personal positions on the issue as well as provides information about US immigration legislation and how this has changed since 9/11.

1 comment:

Jon. said...

city paper did an article about the issue back October which was interesting/depressing read it here

http://archives.citypaper.net/articles/2010/10/07/and-stay-out

and had a follow up interview with his wife

http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity?cat=Immigration&main=CityPaper%20-%20Blogs:%20The%20Naked%20City

same thing often happens to to every brown Asian country out there like, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines ..
The Haitians also have to deal with the loopholes associated with
"Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty acts, which made deportation mandatory for any immigrant who commits an "aggravated felony," an opaque term that includes everything from non-violent drug offenses to tax evasion."

Its pretty much a random lottery when it comes to deporting some of these people all based on city an state governments and how badly they want the brown people out