Taste of the Land: A film

https://emergencemagazine.org/film/taste-of-the-land/

This is a documentary film, courtesy of Emergence Magazine, about Kalyanee Mam,  a Cambodian-American filmmaker, about her 20 years of returning to Cambodia to connect with the people, their land and their ancestors. She tells the story of how her family was forced to leave Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, their journey to Stockton, California, to becoming “Americans”. She talks about what was gained, and what was lost by the process of becoming refugees and immigrants.

Film synopsis:

“In the Khmer language, the root word for “nature” and “country” is cheate, meaning “taste”: to truly understand the essence of the land, one must know it through the senses. Since fleeing Cambodia with her family during the Khmer Rouge regime, and a genocide which devastated an entire culture and displaced millions of people from their homes, award-winning documentary filmmaker Kalyanee Mam has spent much of her life searching for a rooted connection to place. This film follows her to the landscapes of her homeland—changing through deforestation, industrialization, urbanization and development—where she has spent years tenderly documenting the disappearing, relational ways of life held within them. As she comes to know these places not only through the lens of her camera, but through the intimate relationships she forms with the landscapes and people whose stories she shares, Kalyanee awakens an ancestral memory of the taste of the land that lies within.”

In these last few days in the race for President, Trump/Vance have amped up hatred towards immigrants and refugees. It is all they have left to run on, and it is the most vile, racist and fascist core of their campaign. I hope by watching this film, you can understand the conditions of suffering that drive people to leave their homeland, and why it is so crucial that we vote to protect the immigrants and refugees who live in our country.