DEMOCRACY IN
AMERICA'S LITTLE BAGHDAD
Directed by Diego Lynch
Co-Directed by Rahmah Mohamad Pauzi
Only two screenings!
As the democracy established by the 2003 Iraq War fell into sectarian violence, over 60,000 Iraqi refugees resettled in El Cajon, a small California town. However, two decades on, these New Americans have yet to find local representation.
But a pair of activists are leading their community to overturn the political lines that divide the city’s immigrant core and leave them with no one to hold accountable for bad schools, high rents, and racist violence.
Can the 2020 Census help overcome not just gerrymandering, but the trauma of the US-instigated democratic experiment in Iraq?
THE PEOPLE, INSTITUTIONS AND IDEOLOGIES THAT MADE THE IRAQ WAR STILL DOMINATE U.S. POLITICS –
- and block action on climate change and inequality. However, the fight for representation is a way out. Thousands of poor, immigrant and working class communities across the country will determine the political topography of a nation that is rapidly becoming ungovernable. The question of whether the U.S. turns toward democracy or authoritarianism hinges on the mobilization of places like Little Baghdad.
Diego Lynch
Director
I came to El Cajon, mere miles from my childhood home, after graduating from NYU with a Masters in Journalism and years of trying to find my own voice in our republic. This story spoke to my training, political, economic and journalistic, and no one who grew up in the shadow of the War on Terror could fail to be curious to speak to its victims. I don’t think I can save them, but, if they can get representation, maybe they can save democracy in America.
Rahmah Mohamad Pauzi
Co-Director
I grew up in Malaysia and came to America after being awarded a full-ride college scholarship. I graduated with a journalism degree and went on to receive a Master’s in News & Documentary from NYU. Over the past 10 years, from short documentaries about refugees and global migration, to extensive work on “The Kleptocrats” – a feature documentary about the NYT’s investigation into the corruption at the highest level of Malaysia’s ethnic nationalist political class – my personal experiences push me to interrogate how large-scale political and historical forces shape the lives of the individuals and their democratic rights.
