Though your focus is on African Americans, you also study other communities, don't you?
I have always been fascinated by those who are not always seen as fully American and who are struggling to be so. Jews, Indians, African Americans, the list goes on.
After all, America is really just the sum of the collective desire to make a new place by forgetting the old. This can be a violent process as well as utopian: it is rooted in dreams and carried out by people who will do anything to make their dreams come true. And that is why I have made a short feature film called Abhidya. It looks at both immigrants entering American society and those trying to help them to make their home here. Both desires -- to strive and to assist -- define this country.
What is the film about?
It tells the story of two women. An Indian American who is drawn into working with immigrants here and the white American woman, who is drawn to exotic and troubled things, and who goes to India to work with the poor. I am also looking in the film how good intentions go wrong and the limits for liberal acts.
Photograph: Paresh Gandhi
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