February 25, 2009
7:18 pm
From Laos to the U.S.
" The Betrayal" is a documentary that chronicles a families experience before, during, and after the Vietnam War which includes geopolitics and the upheavel of exilie. The story is told through the eyes of Thavi, and includes compelling conversations of him and his mother and his nine siblings. Thavi had an intimate knowledge of war for as long as he could remember: Jets screeching overhead, rockets pounding his village, wounded neighbors and body bags. His father was among thousands enlisted to fight the North Vietnamese in the CIA's clandestine war in Laos. But after the communist Pathet Lao took control, Thavi's family was stigmatized by its association with the United States. His father, nabbed by the new rulers for a "seminar" re-education, was assumed killed. "Resilience" and "fortitude" hardly begin to capture the family's response to its ensuing struggles: dead-of-night escapes, the purgatory of a Thai refugee camp, the brutal awakening that asylum in the U.S. would not bring them "one step away from heaven," as Thavi's mother believed.Expecting the country to take care of her family in appreciation of her husband's sacrifice, she instead found herself and her children sharing a room in a tenement crack house, gang warfare raging around them.
Many families that live outside the U.S. have a fake reality of what it is like to live in the U.S.
Once they get here they can experience some of the same hardships that they experienced in there country.
Although most of the time conditions are better. I think this would be a really good flim to see and it is also Oscar nominated!
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