Because his family was the first Asian family to live in Seymour, Indiana, Tony Nguyen said experiencing racism was an inevitable part of growing up in southern Indiana.
In order to highlight the community, Nguyen went back to Seymour to film “Giap’s Last Day at the Ironing Board Factory,” a 30-minute documentary of his mother’s final day of work.
Nguyen will be at the IU Cinema today for a screening of his film.
“It’s a small personal documentary about my mother, our relationship and my childhood in Seymour, Indiana,” Nguyen said in an email. “My mother, Giap, just told me she was retiring from the factory, and I realized how little I knew about her job and her prior life in Vietnam.”
His mother lived in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and escaped to the United States in 1975, he said.
Because she was seven months pregnant, his mother ended up working on the factory’s assembly line within weeks of arriving in the country.
She worked at the factory for 35 years, he said.
Originally, Nguyen said he wasn’t planning to turn his mother’s story into a documentary.
“I showed my mentor Steven Okazaki, an Oscar-winning filmmaker, some of the footage I shot, and he encouraged me to turn it into a movie,” he said. “He came on board to produce it. I couldn’t have done it without him.”
The majority of the film was shot on his mother’s last day at the factory, he said.
Once he decided to turn it into a documentary, he said he continued researching after his mother’s retirement.
“I did some research on the actual factory and learned that it was the last remaining ironing board factory in America,” he said. “So I went back to Seymour and filmed how ironing boards are made to include into the final cut.”
The film is the first of a three-part documentary series revealing the Asian experience in America, he said.
The film is relevant today, Nguyen said, because racism is still alive and strong in many communities.
“I feel like Asian-American issues tend to be largely invisible when people talk about racism,” he said. “Perhaps because of the model minority myth and other stereotypes, some people think Asians don’t have problems or anything to discuss or be angry about.”
Nguyen made his first documentary, “Enforcing the Silence,” in 2011. The film tells of the life and unsolved murder of Lam Duong, an activist journalist.
Nguyen doesn’t come from a film background, but has always loved movies, he said.
“Somehow I gained the time, courage and determination to pursue it,” he said. “With the encouragement and support of many people, I’ve been very blessed to be able to keep trying to make movies.”
Okazaki has encouraged him the most to continue working as a filmmaker, he said.
Many of his family members have graduated from IU, and Nguyen said he is proud to share his film with the community.
He also said he’d like to see communities making films with the resources they have.
“Seek out filmmakers you admire or talk to others interested in the subject,” he said. “Read. Watch a lot of movies. In today’s digital age, there’s also so many tutorials online to learn the basics. Then, just try it.”
