This admirable humanist exercise in simple documentary filmmaking spotlights a politically conservative midwestern state usually associated in the minds of most Americans with flatlands and corn—or not associated with anything at all other than flyover-state anonymity. But his film by Beth and George Gage tells us a lot about Nebraska most of us never knew: in 2016 the state took in and settled more refugees seeking asylum form war-torn countries than any other US state.
Along the way, we meet some of these refugees and their sponsor families who selflessly helped them acclimatize to the American way of life. The film also captures the refugee experience at a low point in American political history: after centuries of being a bastion of hope for asylum-seekers, then newly elected President Donald Trump was implementing his Muslim ban and implementing anti-immigration measures that were, to say the least, unwelcoming to everyone but especially to those fleeing war-ravaged countries like Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, and others. The strength of the Gages’ film is that it puts a human face on the refugee experience: these are not, as the usual right-wing nationalist rhetoric would have you believe, people who come to America to take advantage of the welfare system or steal jobs from otherwise hardworking Americans. The film includes a fairly wide cross-section of recent refugees now comfortably settled into their Nebraskan lives: from young Iraqi women fleeing Isis to families who fled civil war in places like Syria and Somalia. There’s even a couple from Afghanistan who fled persecution by the Taliban, both of whom were members of the Afghan parliament who dared advocate for women’s rights.
What gives the film an edge is the incorporation of the Trump administration’s anti-refugee legislation, which serves to challenge these refugees’ notions of American freedom, especially when some of their loved ones back home have to now seek asylum in Canada or are unable to get visit visas to the US. In the end, it’s disheartening to see these refugee families have their almost religious faith in the American system diminished by Trump’s profoundly un-American immigration restrictions. And as inspiring as all of these refugee success stories are, one can’t help but think of the reality that these migrants are the lucky few: sadly, most asylum seekers will never get this once-in-a-lifetime shot at the American dream. Recommended. Aud: C, P.