Meet Renee Tajima-Peña, a lifelong educator and Oscar nominated filmmaker, whose latest work Asian Americans premiers on PBS May 11th and 12th. It's a 5-hour documentary and along with the episode producers, Renee shares amazing stories of Asian Americans from decades far and recent as its series producer. Learn of her early years in Southern California, how she learned early how to fight for what's right in high school and at Harvard, and what she wants her legacy to be. Tune into Asian Americans on PBS on May 11th and 12th 8pm EST / 7pm CST.
Show Notes
Meet Renee Tajima-Peña!
We celebrate her amazing career, creating works from Who Killed Vincent Chin to Asian Americans and teaching the next generations about Asian Americans at US Santa Cruz and UCLA.
We support her work and the work of her crew on Asian Americans a story "not about how Asian became Americans, but how Asians really shaped America."
We are inspired by her vision and creativity proven with decades of activism and education. We are so blessed to have Renee on the show and in our lives.
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About Renee:
Professor Renee Tajima-Peña is Professor of Asian American Studies, Director of the Center for EthnoCommunications and holder of the Alumni and Friends of Japanese American Ancestry Endowed Chair. She is an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker whose credits are Who Killed Vincent Chin? My America…or Honk if You Love Buddha, Calavera Highway, Skate Manzanar, Labor Women, No Más Bebés and other films about themes of immigration, race, ethnicity, gender and social justice. Her films have screened at the Cannes Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, South By Southwest Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and the Whitney Biennial.
Tajima-Peña is the series producer/showrunner of Asian Americans, an unprecedented 5-hour series on the Asian American experience that airs on PBS in May 2020. The first-ever television history of its kind, Asian Americans represents a collaboration of Asian American filmmakers, scholars, community, and public media, and will include a national engagement initiative, curriculum and website in addition to the television broadcast. She also produces online media projects that explore the history of Japanese American incarceration and resistance. Building History 3.0 is an interactive documentary and video game-based learning project on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. The project is supported by the National Parks Service and the California Civil Liberties Public Education Fund. Tajima-Peña co-founded the Nikkei Democracy Project, a multi-generational multi-media collective that uses the power of the Japanese American imprisonment story to expose current threats to Constitutional rights.
What is Dear Asian Americans?
Dear Asian Americans is a podcast for and by Asian Americans, focusing on authentic storytelling rooted in origin, identity, and legacy. Host Jerry Won brings on guests from diverse backgrounds and career paths to celebrate, support, and inspire the Asian American community. New episodes air every Tuesday across all major platforms. Instagram: @dearasianamericans