Becoming American: The Chinese Experience, a 3-part, 4 1/2 hour series, premiered in March 2003, on PBS.

What does it mean to become an American?

In every immigrant group, each generation finds a balance between the values and practices of its heritage, and the mores of its adopted country. What is lost and what is gained, both personally and culturally, when one sheds part of one's heritage to make way for a new self-identity?

Bill Moyers and a team of filmmakers including Thomas Lennon, Mi Ling Tsui, Steve Cheng, Ruby Yang, Joe Angier and Michael Chin have collaborated to explore these questions through the dramatic experience of the Chinese in America.

The saga begins in the mid 19th century, when civil war, flood and famine in Southern China persuaded thousands of young men to leave family and village clinging to the hope that they could find a fortune in the California Gold Rush. But the welcome they first received in America soon turned cold. Even as they contributed to this country by helping to build the transcontinental railroad, setting new precedents in law and founding thriving businesses, Chinese Americans continued to battle the perception that they are "permanent foreigners" and somehow not fully American.

Through interviews with historians, descendents, and more recent immigrants, Becoming American: The Chinese Experience tells this fascinating story. The 3-part series continues right up to the present, as new immigrants from China join Chinese Americans who have lived here for generations in a dynamic example of the American experience.