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https://studentshare.org/anthropology/1689820-extra-credits.
Dith Pran had suffered a great deal for approximately four years before escaping to a refugee camp. Here he was later rescued and reunited with his friend Schanberg. The evacuation from Saigon led to the clearing of and falls in Phnom Penh, paved the way for a more ruthless Khmer Rouge that led to the brutal genocide in which many people lost their lives (Dawn, Remsing, Hmong Folklore).
The film tried to preserve the historical accuracy and ideologies and the portrayal of events as they happened. A lot is learned from the film, even though the producers skipped some issues. They try to keep the most critical issues like culture to give the movie the touch of Cambodia setting and portray the genocide picture, especially when panic and desperation arise when violence breaks out.
This American film discusses the Hmong American community and a retired auto worker Walt Kowalski. Kowalski is lonely since his children do not care about him. In addition, the neighbours he was used to had moved to other places, and others passed away and were misplaced by Hmong immigrants from Southeast Asia, who he hated so much. His life was quiet until someone tried to still his Gran Torino.
From this event, a young man called Thao is introduced to Walt’s life when his gang forces him to go and steal Walt’s, Gran Torino. However, he was caught red-handed, and Walt decided not to shoot him. When Thao’s mother and sister Sue discover what Thao had planned to do, they force him to work for Walt to apologise, forcing him to do odd jobs. This relationship between Walt and Thao leads to a change in their lives. They treat each other as a family to the point where Walt includes Thao in his will, leaving him the Gran Torino in a condition that he will never try to modify it in any way. He also went to his house to the church and nothing to his children, who were just after his home and car (Garrett, Diane, and Pamela McClintock).
In this movie, the Hmong community is portrayed as evil characters who engage in bad vices like stealing and being gangsters that terrorize and bully women. The Hmong men are described as lacking character because they raped Thao’s sister Sue. Although the film shows that the community is demonstrated visibility in the popular culture of Americans, it also portrays some outdated negative stereotypes of the Hmong community that were abandoned long ago. The Hmong community faced rejection and racism from the Native Americans like Walt himself when they first settled in America. The Hmong community went through a lot of problems as they were refugees of war. In Ferdinand’s text, there was a collision of the two cultures in terms of culture, for example, the medical and cultural conflict