A Lot Like You
What happens when a woman goes in search of her identity and discovers that much of what she battles against as a community activist in the US – including sexual and domestic violence– is part of her history and culture on another continent?
Eliaichi Kimaro is a first-generation American, with a Tanzanian father and Korean mother. So the notions of culture, race, and the American Dream she inherited were complicated. When she started thinking about having kids, she struggled with how to pass along her cultural heritage. So she decided to film her father as he moved back to his homeland, and struggled to fit back in with his community. And in the process, she discovered the beauty and the brutality of the world he'd left behind 40 years earlier.
Despite working over 10 years in the sexual/domestic violence movements, Eliaichi's conversations with the women in her family unearthed brutal stories of gender violence, the likes of which she had never heard before. She attempts to come to terms with this cultural heritage that is in direct conflict with how she defines herself today, both as an activist and as a mother.
KUOW interview with director/writer Eliaichi Kimaro.
Writer, Director & Producer: Eliaichi Kimaro
Co-Producer, Editor, Co-Writer: Eric Frith