Daughter From Danang

In 1975, at the tail end of the Vietnam War in 1975, President Ford issued a directive to rescue over 2,000 Asian-American kids in a controversial mission termed "Operation Babylift." Humanitarian groups encouraged mothers to give up their offspring (the North Vietnamese had threatened to burn and kill children fathered by American soldiers), but while many Vietnamese mothers believed the separation would be temporary, once stateside, the children were placed in adoptive families, sent to school, and assimilated into the American mainstream. Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco's compelling Oscar-nominated and Sundance Film Festival-winning documentary Daughter From Danang, which aired on PBS's American Experience series, follows one such child: born Mai Thi Hiep in 1968, the 29-year-old married "Heidi" Bub returns to Vietnam after 22 years to be reunited with her mother Mai Thi Kim and her brothers and sisters. What begins as a simple, joyous homecoming, however, gradually turns more complex and troubled as the "101% Americanized" Heidi struggles to cope with cultural attitudes and norms concerning family responsibility that are substantively different from those found in the United States. It's an unflinching portrait, as the cameras are privy to several moments of raw emotion, ranging from tears of joy to shocked, hurt disbelief as Heidi and her reunited family go shopping, throw celebratory meals, and discuss the finer points of caring for aging parents. A powerful portrait of worlds colliding on an intimate level, this is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)