SENTENCED HOME:
A documentary film about three male Cambodian refugees in the USA who
are facing deportation.
Directed by: David Grabias / Nicole Newnham. USA, 2006.
SENTENCED HOME at Boston College
Ramsay Liem
This article was authored by Ramsay Liem,
Professor of Psychology, Co-Coordinator,
Asian American Studies Program, and CHRIJ Affiliated Faculty at Boston
College. It
will be published in the "2006 Year in Review" of the Center for Asian
American Media
and is used here with permission.
At the Association of Asian American Studies annual conference this past
spring, I had a
chance to preview a remarkable new film, Sentenced Home, co-produced,
directed, and
written by Nicole Newnham and David Grabias. Like other viewers, I was
struck by the
power of this film to put a human face on a critical problem facing
immigrant and refugee
communities today, forcible deportation. Since 2001, over 1.5 million
U.S. residents
have been deported, many for minor felonies or misdemeanors. Deportation
has not been
limited to undocumented “aliens”, but has also targeted permanent
residents. Sentenced
Home sensitively explores the impact of deportation on deportees, their
families and their
communities through the stories of three Seattle area Cambodian
Americans. Each fled
the Killing Fields of Cambodia as children. Two have since been forced
to return to
Phnom Penh 25 years later. Sentenced Home tells their stories covering
their flight from
Cambodia and struggles as refugees in the U.S., the strain on family and
friends prior to
deportation, and the extraordinary challenge of starting new lives in an
alien homeland.
The educational value of Sentenced Home is virtually limitless. With
support from a
multiple, interdisciplinary group of co-sponsors, we screened Sentence
Home to an
audience of 125 at Boston College this fall. Nicole Newnham and Many Uch,
one of the
people featured in the film who has yet to be deported, accompanied the
film. They
participated in a graduate level seminar on human rights offered by our
Center for Human
Rights and International Justice, held a lively Q/A session following
the screening, and
then met with undergraduates over a dinner sponsored by the Southeast
Asian Student
Association. The seminar discussion highlighted the daunting task of
seeking legal
restitution, post deportation, and the virtually nonexistent
psychosocial supports for
deportees and their families. These issues resonated with the work of
several faculty,
graduate, and undergraduate students who are part of a new Boston
College initiative, the
Post-Deportation Human Rights Project. For many students, though,
Sentenced Home
was an eye-opening introduction to the assault on immigrant rights. The
film inspired
outrage, interest in learning more about legal and policy debates
surrounding deportation,
and the desire to take action.
Like many other films distributed by CAAM, Sentenced Home is a powerful
catalyst for
introducing critical issues into the academic experience of students but
also linking
classroom learning to social action. In our case, the screening created
an opportunity to
connect students with our own Post-Deportation Human Rights Initiative
as a way to
sustain the energy generated by the film and deepen understanding of the
fate of
deportees. It also enabled Nicole and Many to network with members of
the Post-
Deportation project and students thereby expanding their own organizing
efforts on
behalf of immigration reform.
As one student remarked to me at the dinner, “I learned more today than
in a lot of the
courses I’ve taken. This is what all of our academic experience should
be like.”
Ramsay Liem