A soon-to-be first-time voter, the filmmaker’s thought-provoking journey into the Rust Belt and South captures four Asian American voters’ ardent first time grassroots political participation ignited by the 2016 rise of “Chinese Americans for Trump.”
“FIRST VOTE” is a character driven cinema verité style film chronicling the democratic participation of four Asian American voters from 2016 through the 2018 midterm elections.
In Montgomery County, Ohio, a first-time voter Lance Chen avidly mobilizes new Americans to vote republican through his Rush-Limbaugh-style podcast and political action committee.
In Orange County, North Carolina, journalist Kaiser Kuo returns to the U.S. after living in Beijing for 20 years and is unexpectedly confronted with the rise of Chinese American conservativism in the South, personified by a rags-to-riches business woman, Sue Googe, who after an unsuccessful first run for Congress, becomes a “tough Chinese cookie” for the Tea Party.
At the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, critical race theory professor Jennifer Hotakes her activism to the classroom teaching about the complexities of race and racism in the American South.
Until 1952, federal law prohibited immigrants of Asian descent from becoming U.S. citizens and voting.
Today, Asian Americans are the fastest growing population in the United States.
FIRST VOTE is a timely story exploring what it means to be American through personal stories of America’s fastest growing political constituency’s diverse experience at the polls in battleground states.
FIRST VOTE
OFFICIAL SELECTIONS:
2020 LA Asian Pacific Film Festival – World Premiere - MAY 5
2020 CAAMFest - Documentary Competition - MAY 15
MORE FESTIVALS TO BE ANNOUNCED
