Early in the film "Minari," Korean American farmer Jacob Yi digs his bare hands into the Arkansas dirt. The first time I saw this, as he revealed the soil's dark, loamy tilth, I swooned: not only to see this rich earth, but also to see hands like mine, Asian American hands, working it.
The film follows the Yi family as they move from California to Arkansas to start a small farm, pouring their life savings into a mobile home and a swath of fertile land. I'm a California farmer who, like Jacob, began farming to grow food for my community: mine Vietnamese, his Korean. I've been heartened that the film has been embraced by such a broad cross-section of the country: farmers and immigrants, the Ozarks and Hollywood (it's been nominated for six Academy Awards). In this past year, during a pandemic that disproportionately affected my community, amid heightened anti-Asian violence and climate-change accelerated wildfires, I felt isolated and unseen. Until I saw "Minari."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/16/opinions/minari-asian-american-farmers-like-me-nguyen/index.html?
