Big Fight in Little Chinatown [dir. Karen Cho]

I’d been trying to think of how to best honor Karen Cho’s profoundly of-the-moment documentary masterpiece. Sure I’m cool enough to be Karen’s friend, but all you have to do is search it and you’ll see how essential her work is to the Chinese-North American community.

While I might not be smart enough to contribute to the reviews praising this film’s discourse, I do understand how Big Fight in Little Chinatown operates beyond its educational power. For the Chinatown communities—their residents, merchants, patrons, friends and family—it is an experience in collective healing, as well as a bridge-strengthener with the communities’ allies.

From the first generation immigrants to the youth at present, whether fighting racism and/or gentrification—Big Fight in Little Chinatown affirms the historically-everlasting battle that our marginalized people have endured. We are linked by that endured trauma, and the sacrifice and loss resulted throughout.

But we are just as much linked by our defiance to exist, and by the celebration and nurturing of our culture and shared values.

And in exploring the present continued fight—this film is about the bonds we all share, regardless at which point any of us came together, or reunited. And so even a noob volunteer like I feels in on that fight—amongst my sheroes and heroes, immortalized.