Open Season By Mark Tang and Lu Lippold

Study Guide for Facilitators and Educators by Louisa Schein and Va-Megn Thoj

This guide offers questions and issues for discussion that can be used by community groups, classes, professional groups, teachers, facilitators and others, including individuals, who would like to think more broadly about themes and questions as they view the film. Different sections will be appropriate for different groups, so they are intended to present a range of choices.

Classes, community organizations and professional groups can use Open Season in many ways. Topic areas include: Race and Ethnicity, Immigration, U.S. History and American Studies, Hmong and Asian Americans, Law, Enforcement and Jurisprudence, Criminal Justice, Forensics, Hunting and Natural Resources, Community Conflict, Violence and Hate, Civil Rights, Filmmaking and Documentary.

This guide is especially designed to offer strategies for discussions about race and racism that are often very difficult to have, and to suggest vocabularies for talking about these difficult subjects.

High school teachers and administrators should look closely at the content of the film and only screen it in carefully chosen contexts with some preparation for the emotional impact of the film.

Questions and Issues for Discussion

The following questions are arranged by themes, but any could be used by themselves or in sequence after screening Open Season. Some questions are similar, but phrased for different emphasis so that the discussion leader can choose and adapt what is most appropriate for the particular group.

Immigrants and Assimilation

1. Asian Americans have continued to be seen as newcomers, and sojourners, unassimilable and culturally distinct no matter how many generations their families may have been in the U.S. Sometimes Asian Americans say they are considered by other 2. Americans to be “perpetual foreigners.” Chai Soua Vang immigrated when he was six years old. Do you feel he was regarded as a full-fledged American in this case?

3. Some observers said the incident was an outcome of culture clash, that Chai Soua Vang and other Hmong “don’t understand property” and that there are different hunting cultures. However, many Hmong spokespeople said they did understand private property. What do you think of the culture clash interpretation of the conflict?

4. What would you say is the significance of property to whites given the footage provided in the documentary?

5. If Hmong say they have no problem understanding the concept of property and of trespassing, then why would other people and the media have said it was a cultural issue? What was being expressed?

6. A stereotype of Hmong hunters that has been reported in Wisconsin is that they are chronic trespassers and rule-breakers. Statistics reported by a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources warden contradict this idea. Where do you think this discrepancy comes from?

7. Does this film reveal something about hunting culture that you didn’t know before?

8. Why would Hmong not involved in the incident be worried that there would be consequences for them? That they would be stereotyped? Why does society allow a backlash against other members of a group when there is an incident like this?

The Racial Dimension

9. Why would white hunters care if Hmong hunted in the same woods?

10. Asians on American turf have often been typed as invaders or enemies. This was seen in the placard displayed by a demonstrator outside the courthouse: “Killer Vang – Send Back to Vietnam.” What is being expressed here? Unpack this.

11. According to Chai Soua Vang, several kinds of slurs were used in the course of the confrontation. These included “You people…” and “You Asians…” and “F---ing Asians…”. What are the differences between these? How do you determine if they are racial slurs?

12. Why would the hunters have slurred all Asians instead of Hmong? What’s going on there?

13. During the trial, some Hmong said that if a Black man was on trial, race would have been more of a factor. What is the meaning of this statement? How do you think this case might have been different if Chai Soua Vang had been white? Or black? Or Latino? Or other types of Asian such as South Asian?

14. What does it mean when the defense attorney says “race was injected” into the issue?

15. An American Indian said in the film: “A lot of people want to give Chai Soua Vang the benefit of the doubt about what happened.” Why would this be true for Native Americans?

Specifically Hmong Issues

16. How did other Hmong come to share the blame with Chai Soua Vang? Chino Lo said that Chai had made a decision but that he would have to live with Chai’s decision – what does this mean?

17. Regarding the bumper sticker “Save a Deer, Kill a Hmong” – what do you think of this?

18. Many Hmong and other members of the community have struggled with how to advocate for considering the Hmong point of view without seeming to exonerate Chai Soua Vang for his own actions. Do you think it is possible to do this?

19. What else would you want to know about Chai Soua Vang or the Hmong to think about this story further?

Community Relations

20. Why would the Hmong community have seen this incident as a community concern? What about the Asian American community?

21. Lu Lippold said that she discovered in the process of filming how much Wisconsinites hate being called “racist.” What do you think that’s about?

21. What kind of threats could the white hunters have perceived from Chai Soua Vang's trespassing on their property?

23. Why would the white hunters have reinforced their group number to ask Chai Soua Vang to leave their property? What effect would this action have on the confrontation?

24. Do you think there is more the Department of Natural Resources could have done? Or could do? What would it be?

25. Do you think that more posting on private land would help? And would it need to be in Hmong language?

26. The white hunters in the film express that Hmong hunters often trespassed on their private properties. Hmong express that they often encounter racial slurs from white hunters. How could these existing perceptions have colored the encounter between Chai Soua Vang and the white hunters?

27. In the statement from Human Rights Coalition Forum shown in the film, the suggestion was made that “no Hmongs should return to this area.” Why would community members recommend this? Is this a solution?

The Trial and Legal Issues

28. Should self-defense be defined in terms of the presence of weapons? If seven of the hunters were unarmed, why did Chai Soua Vang feel threatened?

29. What is racial threat? Could a racial slur be a racial threat that would legally justify self-defense?

30. Which was more important: The question of whether Chai Soua Vang was shot at first, or the question of whether racial slurs were uttered in the form of threats?

31. Is the question of who shot first important? Why? Is the importance of who shot first satisfactorily addressed by the trial?

32. Why wouldn’t the defense have requested evidence of who shot first? What difference would it have made if we knew who shot first? Do you think Chai Soua Vang could have gotten a fair trial if the defense didn’t request that?

33. Could Chai Soua Vang's case have been made stronger by the defense? How?

34. How could the court trial have been done differently?

35. What does it mean when the top lawyer in the state - the attorney general - prosecutes the case? What effect do you think it might have on the outcome?

36. Think about the idea of being “judged by a jury of one’s peers.” What are peers? What would YOU want to know if you were on the jury?

37. What do you think about the jury being all white? If you think non- of color should have been on the jury, would it have made a difference if they were Asian or other people of color?

38. Why do you think Chai Soua Vang gave such a detailed testimony of his killing of the seven hunters?

39. With regard to Chai Soua Vang’s personal testimony, how might it have helped or hindered his case to testify? Do you think his lawyers should have counseled him not to take the stand?

40. Do you feel that Chai Soua Vang had balanced opportunity in the courtroom in terms of his control of English language? Do you think his accented English might have made a difference to the outcome? Do you feel he should have had some kind of language assistance or interpretation?

41. How do you think the line of questioning about whether the victims “deserved to die” affected the trial? How do you understand Chai Soua Vang’s response that some of the deceased “deserved to die”? And his statement that it was “because they didn’t know how to talk to me”?

42. Chai Soua Vang also said he “did what was necessary to stay alive”? How would you calculate this if you were in a similar situation? How would you judge whether hate threats and slurs are physical threats?

43. What might have happened if Chai Soua Vang had been acquitted? What do you think would have been the societal response?

44. Why do you think Chai Soua Vang’s attorneys found “no basis for appeal”? Would you?

45. What does the Attorney General mean when she says: “We will never know what happened”?

46. What was the importance for the prosecution to present testimonies that no racial slurs were used against Chai Soua Vang? Would the outcome have been different if Chai Soua Vang's testimony that racial slurs were used against him had convinced the jury?

47. Chai Soua Vang’s mother said “The heavens can see the truth.” What would she have meant? Why was she so forceful about this? What special perspective do his family members have?

48. After the verdict, Chai Soua Vang's family and some Hmong said the outcome of the trial did not reflect the truth of what really happened that resulted in the killings, while the victims' families and many whites in Sawyer County said justice was done. Why was there a difference in emphasis on truth by one side and justice by the other? When does truth equal justice? Does one carry more weight legally than the other? In this case, which matters most, truth or justice?

The Film and Points of View

49. Is this a good film? What makes it so? Was there something you would have liked more or less of?

50. What difference do you think it makes that the filmmaker is Asian – i.e. Chinese – but not Hmong? And that he collaborated with a white filmmaker?

51. How do you imagine the film might have been different if a Hmong filmmaker had made it? Would it have been better or worse?

52. The filmmakers reported that Hmong felt more comfortable talking to Mark Tang, whereas Lu Lippold was the one white Wisconsonites would talk to. What does that say to you? Moreover, in Wisconsin communities, Mark Tang tried to stay behind the scenes and behind the camera when shooting whites. What do you think about that approach?

53. What do you think would be the effect on the informants filmed for the documentary of participating in such a process?

54. Director Mark Tang said in making the film he was “going for balance.” Do you think he succeeded?

55. In the film, do you find whites or Hmong more sympathetic? Why?

56. Think about the family footage and interviews included in the film. Between the victims' families and Chai Soua Vang's family, who comes across more humanized in the film? Why?

57. Which characters are memorable in the film and why?

58. In what ways might this film change consciousness? Do you see ways it could reduce or increase conflicts or animosities in or between the Hmong and white communities? Would it work to create understanding, as the filmmakers hoped?

59. After the Vincent Chin incident, the documentary film Who Killed Vincent Chin? (see below) played a role in galvanizing Asian Americans to create a movement against racist treatment. What might this movie provoke if anything?

Exercises:

A. Consider alternate scenarios for the hunting incident that would not have resulted in death. In a group, assign different participants to work out other hypothetical outcomes. What options did the hunters have? What options might Chai Soua Vang have had? What options might the prosecution, defense and sentencing judge have had, considering it wouldn’t have been the same criminal case? Report the alternate scenarios back to the group and evaluate these options interactively.

B. In the Vincent Chin incident in 1982, a Detroit Chinese American auto worker was beaten to death by two laid off white auto workers who held him responsible for Japanese imports and their joblessness. View the film Who Killed Vincent Chin? (listed below). Compare and contrast the two incidents and the two films. What differences do you see when the perpetrators are whites rather than people of color? What do you think of the difference in sentences? Are victims thought of differently in the respective cases? What about community and official responses? How do you think the challenges and stances of the two films compare?

C. View the film Slanted Screen (listed below) about Asian men in film and television. Discuss the changing images of Asians in American popular culture. How might the media images of Asian men have affected people’s formation of images in social life. Can you imagine these images being relevant to the Chai Soua Vang incident? How are such images changing, and how should they change? Do you think the 2012 celebrity of Chinese American NBA basketball player Jeremy Lin is relevant?

D. Discuss: Are racial or ethnic slurs ever tolerable? How many times can you take slurs without reacting? What kind of reactions can you imagine having if you are the one slurred? What could you say or do in response? What could you NOT say or do in response? Can slurs be tolerable if they are delivered as jokes? Do you think these dynamics differ for different racial and ethnic groups? Can one imagine what it is like for members of other groups experience slurs specific to them?

E. Look at the photo of a demonstrator outside Chai Soua Vang’s court trial. His placard reads: “Killer Vang: Send Back to Vietnam.” Note that Chai Soua Vang, who immigrated here when he was 6 and was trained as a sharpshooter in the U.S. National Guard, is being mistaken for a Vietnamese enemy. What can be understood about community responses to Southeast Asian refugees and to the case? In particular, what about veterans’ responses?

Additional Resources

Background on Hmong and Southeast Asian Americans

Chan, Sucheng. 1994. Hmong Means Free: Life in Laos and America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. (See especially pp. 1-60: “Introduction: The Hmong Experience in Asia and the United States.”)

Vang, Chia Youyee. 2008. Hmong in . Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press.

Lee, Gary Yia. “Refugees from Laos: Historical Background and Causes.” Search under “History” on http://www.garyyialee.com/

Presentation: Txong Lee Pao and Mark Pfeiffer. 2012. “Building Bridges: Teaching about the Hmong in our Communities.” Saint Paul: Hmong Cultural Center http://hmongcc.org/BuildingBridgesGeneralPresentation2012Version.pdf

Film: The Betrayal (Nerakhoon). 2009. Directed by Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Prasavath. 96 mins. Pandinlao Films. http://www.thebetrayalmovie.com/

Film: A.K.A. Don Bonus. 1995. Directed by Spencer Nakasako and Sokly Don Bonus Ny. 65 mins. Center for Asian American Media.

Film: The Best Place to Live: A Personal Story of the Hmong Refugees from Laos. 1981. Directed by Peter O’Neill and Ralph Rugoff. 55 mins. Sequel: Better Places: Hmong of Rhode Island a Generation Later. 2011. Directed by Peter O'Neill and Louisa Schein. 52 mins. www.embeestudio.com/hmongresettlement/ or www.embeestudio.com/store.php

On Hmong and Violence

Jurewitsch, Sao Sue. “Coalition for Community Relations Releases Report on Chai Vang Trial: Group’s Observers Find Three Main Areas of Concern.” The Hmong Times, Wednesday, November 16, 2005 http://www.hmongtimes.com/print.asp?ArticleID=313&SectionID=31&SubSectionID=1 90

Schein, Louisa and Va-Megn Thoj. “Occult Racism: The Masking of Race in the Hmong Hunter Incident: A Dialogue between Anthropologist Louisa Schein and Filmmaker Va- Megn Thoj.” 2007. American Quarterly 59(4), December: Pp.1051-1095. Reprinted in: Asian American Studies Now: A Critical Reader. Jean Wu and Thomas Chen, eds. Pp. 423-453. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Schein, Louisa and Va-Megn Thoj. “Violence, Hmong American Visibility and the Precariousness of Asian Race.” 2008 (Oct.) PMLA (Publications of the Modern Language Association). Correspondents at Large section on Comparative Racialization. Vol 123 (5): 1752-1756. Reprinted in: Routledge Major Works Series: Asian American Literature Vol. IV Drama and Performance. David Liwei Li, ed. London: Routledge, 2012.

Film: Witnesses to a Secret War. 2009. Directed by Deborah Dickson. 60 mins. ITVS. http://www.itvs.org/films/witnesses-to-a-secret-war http://

Anti-Asian Violence and Discrimination

Fong, Timothy P. 2002. “Anti-Asian Violence: Breaking the Silence.” In The Contemporary Asian American Experience: Beyond the Model Minority. Edited by Timothy P. Fong. Pp. 151-187. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Zia, Helen. “Detroit Blues: ‘Because of You Motherfuckers’.” 2000. In Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Also reprinted in: Asian American Studies Now. 2010. Edited by Jean Yu-Wen Shen Wu and Thomas C. Chen. Pp. 423-453. Rutgers University Press

DePouw, C. (2012). "When Culture Implies Deficit: Placing Race at the Center of Hmong American Education." Race, Ethnicity, and Education 15(2): 223-239.

Film: Who Killed Vincent Chin? 1987. Directed by Christine Choy and Renee Tajima- Pena. 82 mins. Filmmakers Library.

Film: Blue Collar and Buddha. 1986. Directed by Taggart Siegel & Kati Johnston. 57 mins. The Learning Channel.

Film: Slaughtered in Hugo. 2002. Directed by Va-Megn Thoj. 29 mins. Saint Paul, Minn: CHAT TV, Frogtown Media Productions.

On Asian American Men

Film: The Slanted Screen: Asian Men in Film and Television. 2006. Directed by Jeff Adachi. 55 mins. Films for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Background on the Filmmaking Process

Svetvilas, Chuleenan. “Finding Context: An Interview with 'Open Season' Filmmakers Mark Tang and Lu Lippold.” Hyphen Magazine: http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archive/2011/03/finding-context-interview-open-season- filmmakers-mark-tang-and-lu-lippold

Yang, Chi-hui. “Cinema Asian America: Filmmakers Mark Tang and Lu Lippold On Their Documentary ‘Open Season’.” Comcast Xfinity TV Blog: http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/2011/10/15/cinema-asian-america-filmmakers-mark-tang-and- lu-lippold-on-their-documentary-open-season/

Who’s Who

Mark K Tang, Co-Director Mark Tang is an award-winning independent filmmaker who has been actively engaged in the Asian American community in the /Saint Paul area for the last 25 years. Prior to launching his career in the U.S., Tang was a director at Radio-Television Hong Kong’s film drama unit. While his projects in the U.S. focus particularly on the lives of Asian Americans, as cinematographer and editor, his complete portfolio runs the gamut from feature films, music videos, independent shorts, ITVS productions, and corporate videos to on-location cameraman-director for the food and culture documentary series ‘Martin Yan’s Hidden China’, and editor for the PBS Series “Yan Can Cook” in 2000.

Lu Lippold, Co-Director Since 1991, Lu Lippold has produced and directed award-winning documentaries and short films for numerous clients, including corporations, agencies, and non-profit organizations. Her independent documentaries and television segments have been distributed nationally and internationally. Previous careers include teaching English in Japan and Greece, computer systems analysis, and degrees in classics, linguistics, and journalism. She has taught journalism at St. John’s University and the , and she is Director of Funding Programs at IFP Minnesota.

Louisa Schein, Study Guide Author Louisa Schein teaches Anthropology, Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at Rutgers University. She has done research with Hmong/Miao in the United States and China for three decades, and is author of Minority Rules: The Miao and the Feminine in China’s Cultural Politics. She co-directed Better Places: Hmong of Providence a Generation Later (2011) a sequel to The Best Place to Live (1981). She collaborates with activist filmmaker Va-Megn Thoj, writing on issues of violence, masculinity and media, and producing a documentary on Hmong worlds of health and healing. She has written on Hmong artists and filmmakers and has been involved in anti-racist work around the Eastwood film .

Va-Megn Thoj, Study Guide Author Va-Megn Thoj is a filmmaker and community activist in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Born in Laos, he trained in film and literary theory at Indiana University, and film production at Third World Newsreel. A recipient of several peer awards for TV commercials, he has also received the prestigious Bush Artist Fellowship, the Bush Leadership Fellowship, the Media Arts Fellowship, and the Jerome Film and Video Grant. He is currently the executive director of Saint Paul-based Asian Economic Development Association, an organization focusing on small businesses in low-income Asian Minnesotan communities. He has produced TV commercials and documentaries on social issues, including Slaughtered in Hugo (2002), Death in Thailand (2003), and Goodbye Wat Tham Krabok (2005), as well as public affairs programs for Twin Cities Public Television. He is currently directing documentaries about the worlds of Hmong healing and American medicine and about immigrant farmers in the Midwest.

Acknowledgments. The authors would like to thank Marlaina Martin, Ernie Renda, Shanthi Shanduga, Malcolm Shanks, Bee Vang, Teng Yang and focus groups from Louisa Schein’s classes for their input on this guide.

Major Funding for Open Season has been provided by: Asian Pacific Endowment Fund of the Spectrum Trust at The Saint Paul Foundation The Center for Asian American Media The Jerome Foundation