American Studies

Chronicles the remarkable life of 89-year-old Pedro J. Gonzalez, from his early years as a telegraph operator for Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution to his pioneering career as a radio and recording star in Los Angeles, his 1934 arrest on trumped-up charges and subsequent imprisonment, his deportation to Mexico and eventual return to the U.S. some thirty years later.

Chronicles the history of Chicano Park, famous for its giant murals painted on freeway pillars, which became the focus for the revitalization of San Diego's Chicano community in the 1970s and '80s.

Based on actual historical events, this docudrama, which blends archival photos, dramatic reenactments and interviews with former students, portrays the efforts of the Mexican- American community in Lemon Grove, California, to challenge local school segregation practices and racial discrimination in Depression-era America.

Chronicles the history of Filipino immigration to the U.S. during the 1920s and '30s. The story is told by the immigrants themselves, and their interviews are blended with historical photos, film footage, and period music.

This docudrama examines the Filipino experience at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, focusing on the filmmaker's grandfather, an Igorot warrior, one of the 1,100 tribal natives displayed as anthropological "specimens" in the notorious Philippine Village exhibit.

Part of the Who Built America? series, this video tells the vivid tale of the African-American exodus from the rural South to northern industrial cities during World War I.

This video looks at a nationwide rebellion that brought the U.S. to a standstill, when 80,000 railroad workers went out on strike to protest the excesses of the railroad companies.

This video features a fugitive woman slave describing life, work, and day-to-day resistance to slavery on a North Carolina cotton plantation during the 1840s and 1850s.

This video is based on the life of Boston shoemaker George Robert Twelves and reveals how working people helped make the American Revolution.

This video is a film-noir spoof, private eye Clio Malarkey investigates the central role played by working Americans in U.S. history and the hazards of misinterpreting the past.

This historical documentary chronicles New York real estate developer William Levitt's postwar construction of affordable housing for returning WWII veterans and their families in Levittown and other Long Island communities, thereby establishing the prototype for modern suburbia.

This provocative documentary, blending interviews with archival footage, examines the nature of shared national identity and what it means to be an American today.

Examines Pulaski, Tennessee, the town where the Ku Klux Klan was founded right after the Civil War, and where today its memory still runs very deep.

Examines the Anti-Apartheid Movement at the University of California at Berkeley during 1985-86, which led to similar student protests nationwide.

Dramatizes a real-life incident involving a fight between two high school girls--one white, one black-and then traces in parallel fashion the response of the two families to the incident, revealing the real feelings underlying racial tensions as well as the existence of common interests.

A contemporary portrait of the small southern town where, in June 1964, three young civil rights workers were murdered for registering blacks to vote. In the thirty years since, Philadelphia, Mississippi has retained its infamous reputation as a racist backwater.

Features the musical traditions and verbal recollections of eight retired African-American railroad track laborers, whose occupational folk songs were once heard along the railroad lines that crisscross the South.

Shows how the Black Church has embraced African-American lesbians and gay men as dedicated members of its spiritual family.

Examines the life and scientific career of Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), a pioneer in the world of physics who in 1907 became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Examines the American subculture of bingo, a game played by some 35,000,000 Americans each week and which has become a big business generating an annual gross of $35 billion for the charities and religious organizations which operate the games.