Movies – Nellie Wong

Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets (1981)

By hoisanpoet | December 16, 2025December 16, 2025 by hoisanpoet

One of the earliest documentaries to broach the topic of Japanese American wartime incarceration, Mitsuye and Nellie profiles Asian American poets Mitsuye Yamada and Nellie Wong, showing them reading their poetry, meeting their family and visiting the Minidoka and Angel Island sites. See this item in the Densho Resource Guide at Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets. See this item in the Densho Digital Repository at: https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-1024-37/. IMBD: Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets Movie Review: “Up from Invisibility” FREEDOM SOCIALIST…

Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space

By hoisanpoet | February 1, 2024 by hoisanpoet

A Movie Review by Nellie Wong | February 2024 “A woman by herself is a beautiful thing,” intones the narrator of Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space, a two-hour documentary produced in 2023 by PBS for the American Experience series. This vibrant film speaks well about a heretofore under-recognized anthropologist, playwright, novelist, and researcher. The viewer sees Hurston “claim her space” by doing the work she wanted to do: to tell the stories of Black…

Movies Poetry Recording The Memory Palace

After viewing “Three Seasons,” A Film by Tony Bui (2001)

By hoisanpoet | April 23, 2023May 3, 2023 by hoisanpoet

Three Seasons (Vietnamese title: Ba mùa) is a 1999 American film shot in Vietnam about the past, present, and future of Ho Chi Minh City in the early days of Doi Moi. It is a poetic film that tries to paint a picture of the urban culture undergoing westernization. The movie takes place in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. As the characters try to come to terms with the invasion of capitalism, neon signs,…

Movies Poetry

My Eyes Follow Them (2002)

By hoisanpoet | January 1, 2002September 3, 2023 by hoisanpoet

My eyes follow themWomen in Burqas of gold, cream, blue,Burgundy, women unseen, travellingto a wedding party to somewhereIn KandaharHow do I know that they are womenExcept that only women wear Burqas,Covered from head to foot with squaresOf opening, netted or crocheted,Framing their eyesAnd even in their embroidered beautyThe intricate stitching of the coversOver their heads do not distract My eyes follow themChildren in cotton in colors of birdsTheir eyes fixed on the unseen viewer,Their eyes…