Center for Asian American Media

A white luxury tour bus squeezes its way through a narrow Calcutta alleyway as child beggars claw at the windows. The kids inside the bus look like Indian children, except for their Walkmans, hip hugger jeans and Caucasian American parents. They’re separated from the children on the street by a thin window and a stroke of luck. Adopted from Calcutta and raised in rural, Swedish-Lutheran Minnesota, these girls and their adoptive parents are visiting the girls’ country of birth for the first time. The film follows three families – hog farmers, lesbian moms and a girl who is the only "brown" kid in her high school – as they travel from the prairie to the crowded, urban chaos of Northern India. It’s a journey of friendship among Minnesota teenagers who find their reflection not only in the children on the street, but in each other.

“Move over country boys, here come the country girls. There is nothing pretentious or heavy-handed about this film. Not a single false note. That’s a tribute to the young filmmaker’s skill and honesty as well as a reflection of her own sensitivity to the nuances of dual identities and mixed backgrounds.”

- Steve Talbot, Series Editor, PBS Frontline/World

Recognition
Broadband Emmy© Award nomination, in FRONTLINE/World's Rough Cut series

Additional Resources
See FRONTLINE/World's Rough Cut feature »

Related Films
First Person Plural
The Red String

College/Institution

K-12/Public Library/Community Group