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Will We Be Alright? Jeff Chang and Bao Nguyen Think So

Jeff Chang (L) with Isaiah Phillips in We Gon’ Be Alright

By Jana Monji

If you’re at all uneasy with the man in the White House, you might wonder if the US will be all right. White nationalists and separatists have become bolder and been reappraised because there are good people on both sides. To some that might seem as if Jeff Chang’s 2016 book We Gon’ Be Alright came out at a bad time or maybe it came out at the right time.

Until last year, Chang had been the executive director of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts + Committee on Black Performing Arts at Stanford University. Of Chinese and Hawaiian descent, Chang became the vice president of Narrative, Arts, and Culture at Race Forward.

This year, Chang wrote and produced a TV mini-series of the same name, We Gon Be Alright. Under the direction of co-producer Bao Nguyen, Chang extended four essays with four episodes:  Alright: Surviving Resegregation in Silicon ValleyThe Odds: Is Hollywood Finally Diverse?, Is Diversity for Asian Americans?: The College Admissions Crisis and The In-Betweens: How Can We Live Together in America?

Chang visited the historically Black and Latino neighborhoods of Silicon Valley to talk with Isaiah Phillips (aka Randy McPhly) about the gentrification and displacement that is pushing people of color out of East Palo Alto.

The College Admission Crisis examines the curious cases of Asian admissions into Berkeley and Harvard and how affirmative action worked and doesn’t work in bringing about diversity or discrimination.

The Odds look at how actors and directors–Dianne Doan, Adam Rodriguez, Dante Basco, Reggie Hudlin and Justin Chon–are feeling in a post Black PantherCrazy Rich Asians and Fresh Off the Boat Hollywood. In The In-Betweens, actor Rafael Casal and Linda Sarsour take about what it is like to exist outside the binary of Black and White–from blatant racism to stereotyping to attempting to live in two worlds.

During a three-way Skype conversation with AsAmNews, Nguyen and Chang talked about the series. Nguyen explained the choice made to the use of black and white was because “there’s a strong visual identity to that book” and “the cover is an evocative image.”

Chang noted, the black and white cover art is courtesy of Damon Davis from his All Hands on Deck 2015 poster series. Davis photographed individuals in Ferguson, Missouri with their hands up, symbolizing the gesture Michael Brown made before he was killed. The hands are from people of different ages and races to show the diversity of the people involved in collectively protesting Brown’s death.

Chang noted “the book is largely inspired by the Ferguson uprising. Damon is an artist whose work I talk about in the book. The series of posters played a really crucial role in the Ferguson Uprising, energizing the activists.” It illustrated the idea of which side are you on.

Nguyen said, “When I was reading the book, it made me think about segregation, of Selma, the Civil Rights movement, that people were getting bussed to schools. There are really beautiful black and white images from that period of time.  In adapting Jeff’s book into visual form, I wanted to use a strong visual language.” The mini-series uses black and white but also color for impact as in the sequence where “the montage begins with Martin Luther King’s March on Washington and then proceeds through a number of images of folks in the street to the Black Lives Matter folks in Ferguson and those are in color. We move from this black and white period when issues were polarized and we have resegregated.”

While not all Asians are concerned with gentrification or academic standards, in a country that has been “taught to think of race in binaries,” many Asians struggle to be seen in the conversation about race and prejudice. But so do Latinos and people like Linda Sarsour who is Muslim. For Chang this was personal but also for Bar who said, “I really related to that essay, as an Asian American, as someone who feels in between. My parents came to America with literally nothing. They left Vietnam on a boat with 30 people.” Yet the essay was a “bit abstract” and needed to be adapted into something that’s really literal. “We were both going through loss at the time,” Bao remembered. “Other episodes, Jeff was used as a host and a guide  to the issues rather than hearing his personal narrative one of the episodes as a vessel for Jeff’s story and his personal life.” In this one, he’s writing a letter to his young sons about the passing of his father. “I”m indebted to Jeff for opening up. We went through a few drafts of the letter before we started shooting. The day we shot, we pretty much threw away what he wrote and Jeff re-wrote it in the span of an hour.”

Chang confessed, “I completely forgot about that. “The loss was so deep I was completely in a fog for that whole day, for  those two days because we shot in Berkeley.”  Yet Chang felt, that this was “just a beautiful gift that he gave to us in our period of mourning.”

Bao filmed the re-writing, capturing the “raw emotion” in the piece. Bao also noted that he feels the in betweenness. “In America, I felt very Vietnamese, very Asians. In Vietnam, I feel very American.” It’s something he’s had to confront living in Asia–“knowing how American I actually am.” Yet he also noted that “In the time of Trump’s America, it reaffirms what I love about America, in what values I believe are truly American values and ideals that aren’t necessarily things that have been taught around the world.”

Both Bao and Chang hope that this series will be a starting point for conversations. Each episodes is short because “8-10 minutes is very digestible, but people  are hungry for more,” Bao said. During the sneak preview in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, “the one question that people seem to have is: ‘Are we going to be all right?'” That question transforms into “How do we build solidarity, how do we value our sisters and brothers and make sure to uplift them and bring their stories into light and that’s what we try to do with the series.”

Chang noted that his book was written and published in the fall of 2016 and so much has happened since then. “Bao will tell you, too, that one of the things that was happening when we first got started in the series was Bao kept asking, ‘Okay Jeff, but where’s the hope? where’s the hope?'” Chang said, “Ultimately, our message is if we are able to begin to see each other, have empathy and recognize for the struggles, recognize where the harm’s being done” then there is hope. Yet Chang admitted, “I don’t feel that all the time. Some days are harder than others.”

Bao said, “I think the most important part of the title is the ‘we’ part. If we just think of each other as ‘we,’ look at each other in a way that we have to push things forward and build community and think of ourselves as a ‘we’ instead of an ‘I.'” Bao further explained, “I’m always an optimistic person. I used to work for the Obama campaign and so many people would tell me very early days on the campaign, ‘I love America but America will never vote for a Black president.’ And this was mostly people of color.” Then came Election Day 2008. “That forever gives me hope for what can happen.” Bao moved to New York when he was 17 and his second week there was 9/11. “I saw the worst of humanity on September 11. I saw the towers burning” as he walked to class that morning. “It was a moment of disbelief, that America was not America any more. I also saw what happened on September 12. Those experiences make me think even during the worst days of America, there is always better days ahead if we build this future. Those moments give me hope for America.”

If you’re ready for conversations with real people, for thinking beyond the binaries of Black and White, then this series is a good place to start. The docuseries is on Indie Lens Storycast on YouTube and ITVS.

AsAmNews has Asian America in its heart. We’re an all-volunteer effort of dedicated staff and interns. Check out our Twitter feed and Facebook page for more content. Please consider interning, joining our staff or submitting a story

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