Golden Venture: A Journey Into America’s Immigration Nightmare

• Event Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008
• Time: 7:00 pm (CDT)
• Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: Free Admission

• Film

Film Screening
(Peter Cohn, 2006, 70 min.)

Discussion led by Poshek Fu, Professor of History, Cinema Studies, and East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Director of the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies.

“Golden Venture”—a compelling trans-Pacific story—follows the legal travails and eventual fates of a group of illegal Chinese immigrants shipwrecked on Long Island in 1993. Through this film, we are given a window into the constant circulation of Chinese laborers to and from the U.S., showing both the attraction of sojourn in the U.S. and the sacrifice it entails. Note: Posek Fu (UIUC) reviews “Golden Venture” in AEMS News and Reviews (Summer 2008).

This series of public film screenings and lecture/discussion programs is organized by the Asian Educational Media Service (AEMS) at the Center for East Asian & Pacific Studies. It is planned in collaboration with the Spurlock Museum and presented in the Knight Auditorium. Among the films offered for discussion this year, several were chosen with the exhibit “Children Just Like Me” in mind because of the meaningful and often dramatic ways in which they focus on youth and childhood experiences. Guest scholars and members of the campus and C-U communities will introduce the films and lead post-screening audience discussions.