The Peabody Board of Jurors recently named the five-part documentary series “Asian Americans” as the recipient of the Peabody Award for the documentary category.
Prestigious award: “Asian Americans” received the award in a unanimous vote on June 21, according to Rafu Shimpo.
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- Sandra Oh thanked the team behind the documentary series at her presentation as part of the virtual awards ceremony.
- “It is so important this was made,” Oh said. “I know it took a long time, but to be able to watch and learn about my own history and to learn about those who fought before us, creating the pathway which we are on now, really fills me with such pride and motivation.”
- Renee Tajima-Peña, a producer of the series, told Rafu Shimpo they were surprised by “how much people don’t know about the Asian American experience.”
- She explained that some Asian and non-Asian members of their crew had never heard of Japanese American concentration camps or Vincent Chin’s story.
- Tajima-Peña was the producer of the 1987 documentary “Who Killed Vincent Chin?”
The documentary: “Asian Americans” tells the intimate stories of prominent and forgotten pioneers who made an impact on representation and “what it means to be Asian American today.”
- The documentary series casts a new lens on U.S. history and extends beyond the “first wave of Asian immigrants in the 1850s to the social and cultural turmoil of the twentieth century to modern refugee crises in a globally connected world.”
- The series is narrated by Daniel Dae Kim and Tamlyn Tomita.
- “Asian Americans,” a production of WETA Washington, DC, Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), in association with ITVS, Flash Cuts, and Tajima-Peña Productions, was released on PBS in May 2020.
Featured Image via ITVS
