Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

TV12 specials explore history, tradition and culture

Independent Lens "Vietnam: The Next Generation"

The Vietnam War is a memory forever etched in the minds of the Americans who experienced it -- whether on the battlefield, at a protest march or on their home television sets. But what do we know of those born in the final days of the war, or in its tragic aftermath? Sandy Northrup's documentary visits with eight young Vietnamese -- entrepreneurs, street kids, farmers, students and artists -- to examine the challenges, choices and dreams that shape their lives, and that of the entire post-war generation, which makes up 80 percent of Vietnam's population. Through their stories, this groundbreaking program takes an in-depth look at modern-day Vietnam, where communism and capitalism are going head-to-head and young adults are seizing opportunities their parents could never have imagined. Monday, May 23 at midnight

Time of Fear

In response to Japan's December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered all Japanese-Americans on the west coast to leave their homes for inland internment camps. More than 110,000 men, women and children were forcibly sent to live in horse stables and military barracks at these guarded camps dotted across the western U.S. This powerful documentary tells the story of the two camps removed from the rest, in the rural, impoverished Arkansas towns of Jerome and Rohwer. With racial tensions boiling and wartime hysteria at an all-time high, the locals were resentful of the more than 16,000 Japanese internees brought to their state, and the rows of barracks and barbed wire built to contain them. Using home movies from the camps and interviews with Japanese-Americans and Arkansans who lived through these events, the film tells a tale of suspicion and fear, of resilience and of the deep scars left by America's long and unfinished struggle with race. Sunday, May 29 at 2 p.m.

An Untold Triumph

This award-winning film recounts the remarkable story of the U.S. Army's 1st and 2nd Filipino Infantry Regiments, which were made up of Filipino immigrants and the sons of immigrants living in Hawaii and mainland America at the time Pearl Harbor was bombed. Actor Lou Diamond Phillips, whose mother is Filipina, narrates the story of these honorable men, who were so enraged by Japan's attack of Hawaii that -- despite being treated as second-class citizens -- they campaigned the U.S. government to allow them to serve in the military. As the "secret commandoes" of General Douglas MacArthur's Battalion, sent by submarines to act as spies behind Japanese enemy lines, the Filipino soldiers became indispensable in the retaking of the Philippines and winning the war in the Pacific. Monday, May 30 at 10 p.m.