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Home > Between 3 Worlds > Bee Vang: How to Navigate Identity Through Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino & the Hmong (Ep. 19)
Podcast: Between 3 Worlds
Episode:

Bee Vang: How to Navigate Identity Through Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino & the Hmong (Ep. 19)
Category: Society & Culture
Duration: 00:54:35
Publish Date: 2018-05-09 02:00:00
Description: For the full show notes of today's episode, follow this link.

We’ve all heard of Clint Eastwood and watched his Western movies growing up. Over a decade ago, he released a movie called Gran Torino featuring people of a special ethnic group known as the Hmong. Today we have the pleasure of talking to Bee Vang who played one of the main characters in the film.

The basic premise is throughout the movie a racist Vietnam war veteran Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood’s character) eventually befriends his Hmong neighbors. Through crazy circumstances he becomes a sort of father figure for the young teenager Thao Vang Lor (Bee Vang’s character.)

Bee Vang is a man with a strong and well informed opinion on a variety of subjects. He graduated from Brown University, and is an active writer, speaker, and activist for social issues, especially those concerning his people, the Hmong/Miao.

This episode is the second episode celebrating Asian Pacific Heritage Month. We've got three more people and then we’ll be getting to a whole new topic.

In Today’s Episode:

  • Gran Torino and Clint Eastwood
  • The history of the Hmong and how they came to the US
  • Discrimination between different Asian communities
  • And much more!

Thank you!

For the full show notes of today's episode, follow this link.

Thanks so much for tuning in and look forward to talking with you next week.
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