This list of fiction and nonfiction books, compiled by Kim Rott, librarian at Sentinel High School in Missoula, Montana, provides a range of perspectives on the issues raised by the POV documentary The Ride Ahead.

This list of fiction and nonfiction books, compiled by Kim Rott, librarian at Sentinel High School in Missoula, Montana, provides a range of perspectives on the issues raised by the POV documentary Made in Ethiopia.

This list of fiction and nonfiction books, compiled by Kim Dorman, Community Engagement Coordinator of Princeton Public Library, and retired librarian Susan Conlon, provides a range of perspectives on the issues raised by the POV documentary Igualada: Refusing to Know Your Place.

This guide is an invitation to dialogue. It is based on a belief in the power of human connection and is designed for people who want to use Igualada: Refusing to Know Your Place to engage family, friends, classmates, colleagues, and communities. In contrast to initiatives that foster debates in which participants try to convince others that they are right, this document envisions conversations undertaken in a spirit of openness in which people try to understand one another and expand their thinking by sharing viewpoints and listening actively.

The discussion prompts are intentionally crafted to help a wide range of audiences think more deeply about the issues in the film. Rather than attempting to address them all, choose one or two that best meet your needs and interests. Be sure to leave time to consider taking action. Planning next steps can help people leave the room feeling energized and optimistic, even in instances when conversations have been difficult.

For more detailed event planning and facilitation tips, visit https://communitynetwork.amdoc.org/.

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This list of fiction and nonfiction books, compiled by Ann Howard, Library Branch Manager, MIS, provides a range of perspectives on the issues raised by the POV documentary Union.

This discussion guide is designed to give you the tools you need to host a screening of UNION that meets your specific goals. The intention is for this guide to be a wide buffet of resources to support productive dialogue, action, and education around the film’s central issues. We encourage you to read through, consider, and pull from content in any section or sections that best suit your screening event. It is not expected, nor likely that you will be able to include all the prompts, resources, or materials present in this guide at your event. You are encouraged to take what makes sense for your screening event and leave the rest. For more ways to take action, resources, a glossary of terms, and a full bibliography, see our reference materials. Or request a screening of the movie.

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THE RIDE AHEAD, from father-son co-directors Samuel Habib & Dan Habib, is the feature-length version of the Emmy Award-winning New York Times Op-Doc, My Disability Roadmap.

Visit their Resources page to access a Discussion Guide, Watch Party Kit, Screening Publicity Materials, and more.

In the documentary film Call Her Ganda we see how the legacy of U.S. imperialism persists in the form of ongoing U.S. military presence in the Philippines and legal protections afforded to U.S. military personnel who commit crimes on Filipino soil. Call Her Ganda reveals the injustices and imbalance of power inherent in this legacy and how it leads to violence against the Filipino population in general and, in the case of Jennifer Laude,the historical erasure and degradation of transgender identity and the inability of the Filipino people to fight for their right to punish violent crimes committed against them on their own shores. In this lesson students will study how the history of the U.S. military presence in the Philippines has an impact on families like the Laudes and how the murder of Jennifer “Ganda” Laude reveals the tragic intersection of imperialism, gender, transphobia and violence.

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Lesson Summary

The United States has a history of imperialism that was intended to increase military reach, expand U.S. markets,identify and exploit cheap labor and resources and spread American culture and ideals. The policy and ideology of imperialism have led to devastating results for the economies and cultures of colonized nations around the world, including the Philippines. Inherent to a doctrine of imperialism is a suppression of indigenous cultures and, according to historian Kristin Hoganson, author of Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender PoliticsProvoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars, a gender-based exercise of power.In the documentary film Call Her Ganda we see how the legacy of U.S. imperialism persists in the form of ongoing U.S. military presence in the Philippines and legal protections afforded to U.S. military personnel who commit crimes on Filipino soil. Call Her Ganda reveals the injustices and imbalance of power inherent in this legacy and how it leads to violence against the Filipino population in general and, in the case of Jennifer Laude,the historical erasure and degradation of transgender identity and the inability of the Filipino people to fight for their right to punish violent crimes committed against them on their own shores.In this lesson students will study how the history of the U.S. military presence in the Philippines has an impac ton families like the Laudes and how the murder of Jennifer “Ganda” Laude reveals the tragic intersection of imperialism, gender, transphobia and violence.

Jardines is an intimate portrait of the experiences and trajectories unique to displaced queer folks as they flee violence and persecution in their home countries. The film introduces us to people from all over the world as they contemplate the uncertainty of a future in the United States at a time when asylum legislation and LGBTQ+ rights are under legal duress.

When an energy company begins searching for natural gas in New Brunswick, Canada, indigenous and white families unite to drive out the company in a campaign to protect their water and way of life. In this lesson, students work collaboratively in groups to explore specific clips of the documentary, become experts in that particular segment, and teach it to other members of their group and their class.

Enduring Understanding:
Water is a life-sustaining necessity that while some communities fight to preserve others allow greed to quench its undeniable importance.

Objectives:
In this lesson, students will:

• Evaluate the practice of fracking and the impact it has on ecological systems, particularly the natural water supply in New Brunswick, Canada.
• Draw conclusions about the intersection of monetary gain and environmental consciousness.
• Examine and become experts in a particular section of the documentary for the purpose of teaching that section and its content to other members of their class community.

Materials:

• Laptops
• Access to the short film Water Warriors
• Headphones
• Worksheet
• Pen/Pencil

Essential Question:
Where do ecological justice and indigenous rights fit into the paradigm for the fight for human rights globally?

Supplemental Material:
UN Sustainable Development Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg6

Proposed Grade Levels: 7-12

Time Frame: 90 minutes

Content Areas:

• Environmental Justice
• Humanities / Human Rights
• English Language Arts
• Civil Engineering
• Short Film Studies

Preparing to Facilitate
Participants will arrive with differing degrees of knowledge and lived experience with regards to the many topics that Manzanar, Diverted invites you to explore. It is helpful to prepare yourself and ground yourself in both knowledge and intention ahead of facilitation. As a facilitator we encourage you to take the necessary steps to ensure that you are prepared to guide a conversation that prioritizes the safety of those whose experiences and identities have been marginalized. This will allow you to set an intention (and sustain a generative dialogue) that maximizes care and critical curiosity, transformation, and connection.

The following are tools to support you and your community before, during, and after the screening + discussion.

Helpful Concepts, Definition, and Language for Framing

Settler Colonialism: The goal of settler colonialism is the removal and erasure of Indigenous peoples to take and use land indefinitely, and to establish property rights over land and resources. According to the “Settler Colonialism Primer,” by Laura Hurwitz & Shawn Bourque, “settler colonialism is not just a vicious thing of the past, such as the gold rush, but exists as long as settlers are living on appropriated land and thus exists today.” An ongoing structure, settler colonialism has sought to gain control over land, space, resources, and people by illegally occupying land then establishing coercive labor systems to extract resources from the land and establish economic infrastructure.

A settler is anyone who isn’t Indigenous and lives on the stolen land that we now refer to as the United States of America. However, under settler colonialism, groups are racialized in different ways according to the economic needs of the settler state. Some peoples were brought to settler states due to chattel slavery or indentured servitude. Others are descendents of European settlers.

Tribal Sovereignty: According to the National Congress of American Indians, “Tribal members are citizens of three sovereigns: their tribe, the United States, and the state in which they reside.” Tribal sovereignty is defined as, “the ability to govern and to protect and enhance the health, safety, and welfare of tribal citizens within a tribal territory. Tribal governments maintain the power to determine their own government structures and enforce laws through police departments and tribal courts.”

Counter-Narratives: Counter-narratives are stories that challenge widespread beliefs and discourses (Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). They often serve as powerful and rich data sources to present and elevate the voices of historically marginalized communities that have been left out, erased, or made invisible in the mainstream discourse.

White Supremacy: White supremacy is the source of race based violence, and it has also shaped the mainstream environmental movement and perceptions about conservation. White supremacy is an ideology promoting white people and the ideas, thoughts, and beliefs and actions of white people as superior to those of people of color. The systems of white supremacy also refers to interlocking institutions and systems: Political, educational, social, cultural and more. Within these systems, white people have a structural advantage, individually and collectively. White supremacy is ingrained within systems, including the environmental movement with prominent white male founders. American environmentalism’s roots have long standing prejudices against local communities and Indigenous peoples, and have historically prioritized conservation of “wild places” at the expense of people who live there. Local people are often written out of conservation narratives, which the environmental justice movement sought to change.

Environmental Racism: Dr. Robert Bullard, a leader of the environmental justice movement, defines environmental racism as “any policy, practice or directive that differentially affects or disadvantages (where intended or unintended) individuals, groups or communities based on race.”

Environmental Justice: The environmental justice movement began over thirty years ago at the First National People of Color Leadership Summit, where a delegation drafted the following:

• The 17 Principles of Environmental Justice
• The Principles of Working Together
  

These principles and practices significantly redefined and reconceptualized our understanding of the “environment,” and shifted from the environment being considered “pristine natural wilderness” to areas where people (particularly people of color), live, work, study, play, and pray. This subsequently allowed for the inclusion of issues such as toxic pollution, transportation, worker safety, and environmental health. The environmental justice movement seeks to connect the dots between environmental, economic, social, and racial justices. Environmental justice is the movement’s response to instances of environmental racism.

Japanese American World War II Incarceration: According to Densho’s Terminology Guide, the term “internment” that was used historically, fails to accurately describe what unjustly and illegally happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. “Incarceration” is the suggested and more accurate term. The Associated Press Stylebook, 56th Edition, (a guide for newsrooms, journalists, and reporters), was recently updated to reflect a terminology change from “internment” to “incarceration.”

FILM SUMMARY

On a hot summer night in Detroit in 1982, Ronald Ebens, a Chrysler foreman, killed Vincent Chin, a young Chinese American engineering draftsman, with a baseball bat. Ebens’ stepson Michael Nitz, a laid-off autoworker, held Vincent in a bear hug while Ebens brutally bludgeoned him to death. Although Ebens and Nitz pled guilty to manslaughter, they never spent a day in jail. This gripping Academy Award-nominated film relentlessly probes the legacy of Asian American activism and the implications of the murder—for the families of those involved and for the American justice system.

USING THIS GUIDE

This guide is an invitation to dialogue. It is based on a belief in the power of human connection and designed for people who want to use Who Killed Vincent Chin? to engage family, friends, classmates, colleagues, and communities. In contrast to initiatives that foster debates in which participants try to convince others that they are right, this document envisions conversations undertaken in a spirit of openness in which people try to understand one another and expand their thinking by sharing viewpoints and listening actively.

The discussion prompts are intentionally crafted to help a wide range of audiences think more deeply about the issues in the film. Rather than attempting to address them all, choose one or two that best meet your needs and interests. And be sure to leave time to consider taking action. Planning next steps can help people leave the room feeling energized and optimistic, even in instances when conversations have been difficult.

Please be advised that there are a number of disturbing scenes of violence, sexuality, and racist depictions. In terms of language, be aware of profanity and racial slurs throughout the film. Referring to anyone of Asian descent as “oriental” or a Japanese/Japanese American as a “Jap” is inappropriate and racist.

For more detailed event planning and facilitation tips, visit https://communitynetwork.amdoc.org/.