On June 3, 1973, a man was murdered in a busy intersection of San Francisco’s Chinatown as part of an ongoing gang war. Chol Soo Lee, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who had previous run-ins with the law, was arrested and convicted based on flimsy evidence and the eyewitness accounts of white tourists who couldn’t distinguish between Asian features. Sentenced to life in prison, Chol Soo Lee would spend years fighting to survive behind bars before journalist K.W. Lee took an interest in his case. The intrepid reporter’s investigation would galvanize a first-of-its-kind pan-Asian American grassroots movement to fight for Chol Soo Lee’s freedom, ultimately inspiring a new generation of social justice activists.
"Please don't. I have a family..." were her last words. In October 2002, her picture appeared to the nation, from CNN to the New York Times, her sultry eyes seeming to tease us to discover who she is. When four men discover that 17-year-old Gwen Araujo, the girl with whom they had been intimate, was biologically male, they beat and strangled her to death. They were arrested for the murder two weeks later, claiming they acted in the heat of passion, provoked by what they saw as Gwen's deceit. Shelly Prevost s powerful documentary explores the controversial events surrounding the violent murder of Gwen Araujo in Newark, California a murder that shocked the country when it made national headlines.
