Professor Prabal De, CCNY 2014
Immigration Stories
Golden Venture: Widening the Context
010 years
The documentary filmmakers were very thorough, including multiple perspectives and across decades of activity. The researchers were definitely very thorough, even including personal details of the man with the pet bird who visited the detainees every single week for several years. It makes me wonder what they excluded from the film, and how the information they chose shaped the story.
The documentary is definitely unique in that it dedicates a large portion of air time to interviewing the undocumented immigrants. The emphasis on the personal lives of the lawyers and the Chinese passengers of the Golden Venture was an interesting choice. The documentary took the time to humanize and empathize with them, struggling at a bad time and bad place. It almost made the documentary seem like a good guy vs. bad guy kind of dilemma.
I wish the film had included more about American context, besides 9/11 and other acts of terrorism. Instead of seeing the Golden Venture as just an isolated incident, it would be interesting to connect the newcomers with the undocumented group that already exists in New York. They might have included organizations and family members of undocumented immigrants. The film also did not emphasize how terrible the living conditions were for the undocumented immigrants that stayed in America. The narrator gave a brief overview of the hours and the housing but did not emphasize the terrible conditions.
Rachel Weintraub: The Golden Venture
010 years
The documentary “The Golden Venture ,” tells the story of a ship carrying 286 illegal immigrants trying to escape from China, and goes on to track several of the ships members years after they arrived in New York. The individuals who smuggled the people out of China were known as snakeheads. The Golden Venture was the first boat of undocumented aliens to successfully arrive in New York, but not without many hardships. The people coming were trying to find better work and lives in America and some were escaping China’s one-child policy. Before even boarding the boat in Thailand, several died on the journey over the mountains to get to the ship. Conditions on the ship were horrendous; hundreds of people were cramped into barely any room at all. After stopping in Africa and nearly sinking during a hurricane, they finally arrived in New York. People jumped from the boat into the freezing cold water causing another ten deaths. To the ships member’s misfortune, they came at a bad time when the country did not want immigrants because of terror scares that occurred just beforehand by undocumented aliens. The immigrants were detained in jail, without any bail for more than three years. A group of lawyers took up their case and slowly, slowly they started gaining supporters from churches. After a long fight and 99 of the members being deported Clinton finally granted the remaining immigrants amnesty but still no legal status. Two were able to obtain artist visas. Many that were deported tried several more times to make it back to America. Life in America wasn’t as easy as it seems. They were working mostly menial jobs with absurd hours and in constant fear that they would be discovered. The documentary as a whole was very interesting and informative. It really made one empathize with undocumented aliens and see them in a more humane light. The common argument against immigration is that they take away American jobs, but in truth they take the jobs that no American would be prepared to. When people think of illegal immigrants, they usually think of drug cartels trying to cross the border from Mexico, but this documentary really made me realize that there are good people just trying to better their lives and the lives of their families.
