A few years back in the US, you may remember a Bill Moyers documentary series “Becoming American: The Chinese Experience,” which chronicled the dramatic story of struggle and triumph, progress and setbacks, discrimination and assimilation for Chinese Americans. Director Kenda Gee created an equivalent version for Chinese Canadians called “Lost Years”.

LOST YEARS is an epic documentary touching upon 150 years of the Chinese diaspora in Canada, USA, New Zealand and Australia, covering four generations of racism as revealed through the journey and family story of Kenda Gee. Based on over 12 years of research and two years in the making. A timely and timeless journey from the world’s diverse regions that unravels injustice on an international stage, “Lost Years” follows the exodus and turbulent history of China’s diaspora as witnessed through the digital inter-leafing of three successive Chinese-Canadian generations. The journey begins in old China in 1910 and concludes with the movement to embrace redress as a concept of social justice in the modern world of Canada and New Zealand, exactly one century later. An epoch that delivers an important message, namely, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Listen to filmmakers Kenda Gee and Tom Radford talk about Lost Years

If you’re in Canada look for a national broadcast of LOST YEARS on CBC TV in early 2012.

Other documentaries to check out include Hollywood Chinese and Slanted Screen.

Lost Years documentary series clip

The Unwanted Soldiers documentary tells the personal story of filmmaker Jari Osborne’s father, a Chinese-Canadian WWII veteran. She describes her father’s involvement in World War II and uncovers a legacy of discrimination and racism against British Columbia’s Chinese-Canadian community. Without the right to vote, hold public office, or even just obtaining work outside of the Chinatown ghetto, the discrimination against the Asian population of Vancouver in the 1940s was real and alive British Columbia. When the war broke out, the Chinese Canadian population became ideal candidates for “blending in” secret operations in Southeast Asia. Sworn to secrecy for decades, Osborne’s father and his war buddies now vividly recall their top-secret missions behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia. Theirs is a tale of young men proudly fighting for a country that had mistreated them. This film does more than reveal an important period in Canadian history. It pays moving tribute to a father’s quiet heroism.

Watch more stories about WWII and internment camps: Minoru: Memory of Exile, 442-Live with Honor, Die with Dignity, The Bridge : short film, Secret Identities – 9066, and Norman Y. Mineta: A Boy from San Jose.

Unwanted Soldiers documentary