By Jana Monji, AsAmNews Art & Culture Writer During one of my May sojourns, I crossed a changing landscape, going from worrying about traffic jams in Los Angeles to worrying about having enough water in a two-hour traffic jam in Texas to worrying about my car being waterlogged in Arkansas. Cities and signs became scarce. Arkansas was green and it seems as if some front yards ended at the freeway. What a change from Los Angeles where signs are plentiful and wide open spaces scarce. Minari is about a Korean American family who traveled from Los Angeles to settle in Arkansas in pursuit of a better life. The film has garnered awards, beginning with the Dramatic Competition Grand Prize at the Sundance Film Festival where it premiered. It has elicited tears by audience and cast members. After a special screening in honor of Korean American Day (13 January 2021), producer Sandra Oh led a conversation with writer/director Lee Isaac Chung and cast members during which both Oh and Steven Yeun were reduced to tears. Yeun said, in making this film he felt “a deep reconnection to my childhood.”