Director’s Note

The first time I read PANG SPA my mind fell silent. I didn’t know how to think about such a complex story that faces the nuances of my own demographic. It extends beyond the general knowledge of Asian Americans in California, and dug deep into how 1992 carved a history that is so very specific to API Angelinos. Pieces of the story are difficult to swallow. We are a city of people coming together through deeply rooted struggles, questions of identity and chaos of the modern world. In PANG SPA we see how all these hurdles culminate in a slice of life for the Pang family. To add the element that so many of us face in the aging process, Alzheimer’s Disease, and witness a caregiver hitting rock-bottom, gives even more breath to the importance of knowing our past, how these histories formed us, and what bits and pieces could physiologically be forgotten. I hope PANG SPA influences us to think about what community/family means, what parts of our past we leave behind (or pass on,) and how we prepare our community to step into the future.