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Title: Domino Rating: 2.9 out of 4 Reference: Director, Shanti Thakur; producer, Silva
Basmajian. Abstract: Portrays six interracial people's quests to forge their own identity. Explores the similarities and differences of interracial people. Each recounts how their identity was affected by the experience of their parents' history, family politics, the hierarchies of race, gender roles and class. Their views demonstrate how living intimately with two cultures can be a source of strength and enrichment. Library of Congress subjects:
Reviews and Numerical Ratings (4) This was one of my favourites. It’s really informative about sociological issues of race, of categorizing. It’s eye-opening because usually when we talk about race it’s one race or the other; this video talked about people of mixed races so it was informative in that sense. I like the fact that they had lived experiences of real-life people, and not just one person but a variety of people, e.g., Chinese & Black, White & Japanese, which this let me hear a variety of experiences. There was a strong sense of realism. The interviews really conceptualized what they were talking about: they really put into context the experience of isolation, of having to fit into one category or another. This helped me put things into more perspective. The music was good: it was subtle, not distracting at all. I also liked that they talked about the history of the people whom they interviewed and of their race, e.g., the Chinese Exclusion Act, how the Japanese were interned, and the history of Blacks, and it was useful to tie this into their current reality. The one problem I had with it is that I could tell that the video was pretty old because of what they were wearing and the make-up and hairstyles and colours of their clothes. If anything, I’d like to see an update of their lives. Marsha McQueen (undergraduate) (3) Comprised of personal stories of understanding multi-racial identities. It is a smart, engaging film. Would be suitable for any level of undergraduate. Also, shorter sections of the video may easily be used. Brian Fuller (2.5) This video feels somewhat dated, and some sections of it are better than others (the conversations with one of the men who is featured in it are very useful). This video goes over well with students as a means of getting them to talk about “mixed-race”/”multiracial” identity, about the constraints arising when others’ sense of one’s identity differ from one’s own, and about changes in identities. Luin Goldring (3) This film effectively connects experiential accounts of racism to systemic racism within Canada. It also approaches the thorny issues of identity politics through the personal experiences of people who have mixed identities. It shows that gender, race and class are intimately connected and suggests that the polarization of identity that comes from the identity politics movement is not a constructive way to create resistance and change. This film provides a great introduction the concepts of 'race', power, and ideology. Sarah Newman (2) The first part’s a glossy nice introduction
to the narrator & interview participants. Too nice, I think, because
the narrator talks about her relatives in India liking or disliking
her (& vice versa) on the basis of personalities, whereas a 2nd
video I’ve seen by her reveals a long-standing intermarriage-based
estrangement between her family in Canada & her grandmother in India.
The speakers in this part of the video tend to naturalize culture as
part of themselves, not as something negotiated, and I would hope that
students would be encouraged to consider these statements critically.
The second part of the video is more edgy, getting into colour hierarchies,
fraudulence, passing, tears, and some troubling history. I would have
liked to see something about the 1990s context in which the participants
spoke. I also felt let down at the end to discover that two of the participants
are race relations activists and the third en route to it (in theatre
work) – why not tell us this about the participants up front instead
of giving the impression that they are just anyone? Kathy Bischoping
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