INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES:

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• INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
• The Matters of Race project is committed to
  engaging young people of all races and cultures
  in our collective history as a tool for
  understanding their own identity and the world
  around them. Extensive outreach plans are
  currently underway to ensure that many diverse
  populations, especially the nations young
  people, will hear about the series and contribute
  their thoughts and concerns to the national
  dialogue.
• At the heart of the Matters of Race project is a
  four-hour television series that will air on more
  than 300 PBS stations in the fall, 2003. Each
  hour long program of the four-part series is
  expected to be viewed by no less than 4-5 million
  viewers with the potential to reach over 40
  million viewers the community and educational
  outreach has the potential for an even greater
  impact.
• Programs in Brief
• The four broadcast hours of Matters of Race are
  divided into three 60-minute stories and a final
  hour including three 20-minute stories tied
  together by the work of a leading young
  performance poet.
• Race Is, Race Aint
• Episode One weaves together the personal memoirs
  of writers John Edgar Wideman and Jane Lazarre
  with the story of the King Drew County Medical
  Center in South Central, Los Angeles. By
  chronicling the daily activities of the diverse
  hospital staff, the first show explores how race
  can become a divisive factor that can incite
  feelings of suspicion and accusations of
  discrimination even in an environment where
  diversity is recognized as a necessary and
  desired reality.
• The Divide
• Episode Two looks at Siler City, North Carolina,
  traditionally a black and white town of
  segregated communities with a shared geography
  and an unsettled history. This quiet, rural
  southern town is a laboratory for the national
  transformation that is fundamentally altering
  America's sense of identity with a significant
  influx of immigration from Mexico and Central
  America.
• ROJA Productions 145 E. 125th Street NY, NY 10035
  212-426-2700

Introduction
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• What Does It Take to Heal ?
• Episode Three is a contemporary look at two
  communities who are often overlooked in the race
  dialogue Native Americans and Native Hawaiians.
  This third hour of the series is framed by
  challenges to race-based entitlements which
  were pushed to the forefront of public debate by
  recent court rulings in Hawaii and through events
  on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
• Tomorrows Americans
• Episode Four is a look into the future. Produced
  and directed by new young filmmakers, program
  three explores race and its meaning through the
  eyes of the next generation. Divided into three
  short films that are tied together using the
  provocative language of a popular performance
  poet, Tomorrows America is a commentary on a new
  generation where the reality of race and racism
  is less informed by a personal relationship to a
  civil rights movement than to the very real
  experience of a rapidly changing American
  population. Episode Four showcases the stories
  of a new American generation that is more
  culturally, ethnically diverse and colored.
  
• Every Other
• Episode Four Part One examines the new racial
  classifications on the US census through the
  concerns and musing of mixed race people. The
  personal meets the political in this identity war
  story as the real life feud between
  Multi-culturalists and Civil Rights Activists
  plays itself out for the right to claim the
  racial identity of culturally ambiguous young
  Americans. At the center of the discussion are
  youth culture and the values that the next
  generation places on racial identity.
• Who Ive Become
• Episode Four Part Two is the story of Ponnleau, a
  first generation Cambodian American, a young man
  and a new father on probation living in the
  Tenderloin district of San Francisco. Ponnleau
  escaped the Khmer Rouge with his family and fled
  Cambodia to settle in San Francisco in the early
  1980s. Four years ago Ponnleaus father returned
  to Cambodia, leaving his wife and three sons.
  Last year his mother returned, leaving Ponnleau
  to find his own way into America, without his
  parents, as he himself becomes a parent.
  Currently in post-production, this program is
  being produced by young Southeast Asian
  filmmakers and explores how this community
  grapples with their Asian and American
  identities, and the circumstances of their
  immigration and settlement.
• ROJA Productions 145 E. 125th Street NY, NY 10035
  212-426-2700

The programs
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• From the Outside In
• Episode Four Part Three is a personal look at the
  idea that mere survival is no longer satisfactory
  for the future of Native Americans. Despite the
  fact that a young nuclear family is often
  considered an atypical family unit for
  minorities, Dustinn (25 years old - White
  Mountain Apache) and Velma (24 years old -
  Navajo) are working to help steer the course of
  their family and determine for them selves and
  their children the meaning of being Indian in
  America, in the 21st century.
• Summary of the Matters of Race Series
• What obligation does a hospital have to employ
  people who are the same race as those it serves?
  How does race shape the response of a small rural
  town when its populations nearly doubles due
  mainly to immigration from Mexico and Central
  America? What happens when laws meant to protect
  the rights of one minority group are used to
  accuse another of discrimination? How can ideas
  about race be applied to indigenous people where
  communities have been shaped as much by history
  and a relationship to land as by color? What does
  race mean anyway? Can you be more than one?
• These are the kinds of questions that Matters of
  Race engages. At stake in the answers is how we
  define the American identity in this new century
  and how we give shape to the content of the
  American character.

The programs