‘My America...Or Honk If You Love Buddha’

In her delightfully wry 1996 film noted documentarian Renee Tajima-Pena (pictured) attempts to answer this question, in regard to Asian Americans: “Will we truly ever belong in America?” Tajima-Pena’s answer is yes, but not before she delves deeply into her own family history as the Chicago-born daughter of Japanese Americans--whom she considered carbons of Ozzie and Harriet--and into the lives of various others, most notably, well-known character actor Victor Wong (pictured). Most nisei are like Tajima-Pena’s parents, big on seeming all-American. But their children--the sansei (third-generation Japanese Americans)--have wanted to reclaim a sense of Japanese cultural heritage while coming to terms with the legacy of the World War II internment. Tajima-Pena’s probing of this legacy, which many older Japanese Americans have found too painful to discuss with their children and grandchildren, constitutes the film’s most poignant passages (KCET Thursday at 10 p.m.).