REVISED EDITION for

Part 1, COOLIES, SAILORS, SETTLERS:
Voyage to the New World

Opening 4 minutes of program removed

• The program opening of "Coolies" was originally conceived as a 7-8 part series intended to include each of 5 Asian American groups' earliest arrivals, relationship to each other and context of historical period. The beginning was therefore shortened and simplified to make clear that the show foregrounds the experiences of the Chinese, not all Asians, but that other Asians are still linked by historical connections.

• To the extent that treatment of Asian Indians and Filipinos appears too brief or merely token, the segment was reworked to create a more cultural presence for each group ( e.g., more images, folklore, music, spoken dialect, etc.), and added contextual information to deepen the historical connections to the main story and to each other.

• The treatment of the Opium Wars was condensed to focus more on the economic relationship between China and the West. It establishes China’s strength as a major manufacturer of goods for global trade before the Opium wars, and heightens the significant consequences for Asian immigration to this hemisphere resulting from China’s defeat in the Opium Wars by England and France, who used superior Western firepower to overcome their disastrous 19th c. trade deficits with Imperial China.

NEW MATERIAL ADDED

FILIPINOS

•The Philippines section now notes the fact that "Manila galleons" -not just Spanish galleons - were built with Spanish plans, in Manila Bay, entirely of Philippine native hardwood, and created by native labor. The native Lanang wood used to cover the galleon exterior made them virtually impenetrable to English cannons.

"...The little cannon balls get caught in the wood. And the bigger balls just bounce off the hull."

We are surprised to learn that the crews sailing the galleons of the famed Manila-Acapulco maritime trade were not Spaniards or European, but "mostly "(80%) "Filipino and Lascar Indian sailors ".

ASIAN INDIANS

An important new section has been added of images revealing the unexpected practice of the British in sending Asian Indian women as indentured workers among the Indian "coolies" shipped from India to the British colonies in South America and the Caribbean. British interest was to stabilize the work force and as a consequence there was the development of the Asian Indian community and the formation of family.

New historical images of the Diasporic Asian Indian laborers in this hemisphere from sources of their presence in the Pacific Fijis, and footage of contemporary Indians in Guyana (former British Guiana), were added.

ANCESTRAL VOICES

• The revision has recreated a cultural presence for Asian Indians as well as Filipinos by recreating voices in their likely original dialect: e.g., Indios in the Philippines speaking of their lives as "...fishermen... sailing all the islands of the Archipelago" and the voice of the Asian Indian woman whose curses flung at the labor recruiters are a matter of historical record:"...Death to you recruiter! You have robbed me of my marriage bed..."

ANOTHER SIDE OF JEFFERSON AND THE LEWIS AND CLARK EPIC

• As part of demonstrating the key economic importance of Asian trade to the economic development of the U.S. as a young republic in the 18th century, an additional perspective on the iconic saga of the Lewis & Clark expedition commissioned by Thos. Jefferson in 1803 has been added. It recounts the story in relation to the Western tendency of "looking to Asia", and not as just another grand story of the epic American character playing itself out in the heroism of Lewis and Clark and their " Corps of Discoverers".

The program notes instead, that Jefferson’s interest was for the new Republic. He wanted America to become part of the global economy ; to have America become a continent "from sea to shining sea"; to find a Northwest passage to the Pacific; to have a shorter and entirely new route to Asia; and to gain the certainty of unequaled profitability in trading fur pelts from the Pacific Northwest with China.

This is not the conventional story heard in the classrooms of America. It is the story of NY fur trader, John Jacob Astor following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark, establishing the first American settlement in the Pacific Northwest at Astoria, Oregon by 1811, gathering fur pelts, sailing his own ships to China, personally negotiating his sales to the Chinese, and reasonably : "...dreaming of wealth beyond measure".