Please Support “Out in Nowhere”
“Out in Nowhere” is a miniseries highlighting the stories of Asian/Asian American restaurant owners that have opened and operated Asian/Chinese/Vietnamese restaurants for decades in geographical locations in the United States that have a small Asian population. My vision is to capture these restaurant owners’ unique stories asking why they decided to migrate to those parts of the country, how they got there, and why they stayed. Coco (pictured above) is our first restaurant owner interviewee.
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Click here to view a short preview of “Out in Nowhere.”
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During the height of COVID-19 in June 2021, I flew down to Miami, FL to help a friend move from Miami to Dallas, TX. On the way, we stopped by Selma, Alabama on a Sunday. This was my first time in Alabama.
The city of Selma is ground zero in the fight for voting rights and civil rights in the United States from the 1960s. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., former US Rep John Lewis, and 3,200 civil rights demonstrators marched from Selma to Montgomery. I spent some time on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, now a National Historic Landmark. While walking over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the images of Rep. John Lewis and other marchers who were beaten by police officers for advocating their rights kept flashing in my head.
While in Selma, the only place that was open for lunch was a Chinese restaurant called China Star Super Buffet; prior to eating at China Star Super Buffet, we had driven by a handful of Chinese/Asian restaurants that were located in small towns such as New China in Luverne, AL.
I’ve visited/driven through 42 states in the US, and have noticed something peculiar: from a little town in West Virginia to Iowa to Wyoming, and to Idaho, the frequency of seeing China/Asian restaurants in small rural towns out in nowhere is always a given. While many Asian immigrants, refugees, and diasporic communities typically flock to major metropolitan areas in the United States such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, and New York, less is popularly known about communities that exist in the sprawling, rural areas described as “the middle of nowhere.” During my trips across the country, I’ve stopped by and eaten at a handful of these Chinese/Asian restaurants, and have spoken to the restaurant staff in Mandarin, and a majority of them are immigrants. What was notably surprising is that all of these businesses have been operating for over twenty years. So, while eating at China Star Super Buffet in Selma, Alabama during a trip in 2021, I began wondering:
- How did they get there?
- Why did they choose to move here?
- What were their migration stories?
- How did they open a restaurant?
- What are the adversities that they have to overcome such as potential racism?
- What was it like being so far away from your people?
- And, the most important question, why did they stay?
These were the questions that I really wanted to ask them. I wanted to capture their stories. I believe their stories are as interesting, meaningful, and inspirational as other famous Asians/Asian Americans in the major metropolitan areas.
Thus, building on top of the success of my first documentary film, “Coffee Talking Out of Mental Coffins,” Q, the director of this film, and I decided to partner up again and make “Out in Nowhere” to capture the often-forgotten and ignored stories of these Chinese/Asian restaurant owners.
Anti-Asian hate crimes have spiked rampantly around the world since the Covid-19 pandemic began, but this hate and discrimination toward Asians is nothing new. In fact, it can be dated back to the 1860s when the Chinese came to the US to build the railroad. The erasure of Asians and Asian Americans from US History texts further perpetuates the model minority myth that stipulates AAPI ‘exceptionalism’. This ‘exceptionalism’ narrative complicates the traditional Black/White racial discourse of civil liberties and social justice at the expense of AAPI and BIPOC communities by falsely describing AAPI communities as ‘intrinsically smart and considerate, and therefore ‘immune’ to systemic racism, class inequity, and social injustice. The model minority myth simultaneously strangulates the AAPI community into being perpetually handicapped compared to White counterparts by falsely characterizing the AAPI communities as passive, soft-spoken, and easily pushed over, therefore lacking in any significant leadership or political leadership role. Lastly, the model minority myth falsely equates all AAPI communities as being wealthy (e.g. “Crazy Rich Asians” [2018]) and only existing in metropolitan areas with the ability to easily immigrate intra- or internationally at whim. This false perception erases AAPI community members who are impoverished, do not live in densely populated and diverse metropolitan areas, and/or do not have the financial/political/legal means to migrate intra- or internationally.
“Out in Nowhere” refocuses the AAPI narrative on communities often ignored by larger liberal discourses focusing on wealth and representation of Asian America. Instead of the widely perceived, we will focus on the widely unseen population: the lower socioeconomic status and rural AAPI communities that made a home for themselves outside of the perceived norm.
We envision “Out in Nowhere” to be a three-part documentary miniseries, starting with filming three Asian restaurant owners that established their businesses in parts of the United States with little to no AAPI communities present. By generating interest in our documentary miniseries, we hope to expand “Out in Nowhere” into a feature-length documentary film where we would focus on more restaurant owners from other immigrant and refugee/diasporic communities from around the United States.
For now, we completed an interview with our very first restaurant owner in October 2022. This is in the post-production and editing phase. We are planning to release the first episode in Spring 2023. Here is a short preview:
Here is Q. Le Sugiyama’s selected filmography to date (*indicates that JR Kuo was a producer)
- “Coffee Talking Out of Mental Coffins” (2020)*
- “Is This Going to Be on the Test?” (2022)*
- “I Never Picked Cotton” (2019)
- “Mat Nuroc – We Can’t Go Back” (2019)
- “Personalities of Public Health” (2019)
- “Ebola: A Media Retrospective” (2019)
Click here to support minority art and film project.
We are accepting donations of any amount. Every little bit helps. We appreciate all the support you are willing to send us.
We have benefits for higher donation levels.
- $300 – advance viewing of the first episode.
- $600 – advance viewing and receive a T-shirt.
- $900 – advance viewing, receive a T-shirt, and your name will be on the film as a producer.
The fund will help us to film and make the second episode of “Out in Nowhere,” assisting us with travel expenses and compensating our film crew for their time, specifically in sound-scoring and film-editing.
Q grew up immersed in the local library and feverishly rewatching movies on her family’s VCR any time her mother and brothers were asleep. She’s been aware of her cinephilia since she was 9 years old.
Raised to be globally, politically, and socially aware, she pursued her undergraduate and graduate degrees in public health with the intent of helping vulnerable communities through a systemic and interpersonal level.
While pursuing formal education in public health, she spent her free time learning and refining her knowledge and practice of film criticism, film theory, and filmmaking with the guidance of mentors and friends in critical cinema studies programs.
She can frequently be found reading, rock climbing, wrangling her cats, and relaxing with her husband.
Learn more about Q and her other film work here: https://www.splinterend.com/
Rachel is a professional photographer based in Denver, Colorado. She specializes in weddings and portraits and loves being able to make people smile for a living. She recently had the opportunity to expand her skill set to include film and video and is learning more about this medium every day.
Rachel is passionate about expanding social awareness on issues like immigration and is so excited to be part of such a fantastic team helping to tell the often unheard stories of immigrants.
Rachel loves to travel, and can often be found playing card and domino games, chasing her cattle dogs around, or cozied up with some truffle popcorn and a good movie with her husband.
If you would like to see more of her work you can check out her photography website here, http://www.theturquoisecamera.com
Bryan Vo – Sound Specialist
Music has played a huge role in my upbringing and has helped to define the instruments and melody of my life’s story. As a multi-instrumentalist and innovative, I now spend most of my hours in the studio creating stories and enhancing audio in today’s mass media forms. I hope to continue evolving my practice and skills through collaboration and impacting today’s film/music industry. Learn more about Bryan at www.Bvomusic.com
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