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Film puts spotlight on hate crime against Indian American

Documentary filmmaker Sofian Khan has come out with a new film titled Do We Belong? that puts the spotlight on Indian American Srinivas Kuchibhotla and the hate crime that resulted in him losing his life.

Kuchibhotla, a techie, was killed at a Kansas City bar on February 22, 2017 in a racially motivated hate crime by US Navy veteran Adam Purinton.


The documentary features segments with Kuchibhotla's widow Sunayana Dumala, who talks about her late husband and their hopes in America.

“This house was his dream,” she says. “Srinu comes from a middle-class family. To be able to build our own house was a huge accomplishment for him.”

Khan had been following the Kuchibhotla tragedy closely and he knew it had created quite a furore in India. But it hardly created any ripples in the US.

“I felt like, ‘this is crazy. This is such a big story and people have little awareness of it,’” he told The Wire. One day, he read a piece on Kuchibhotla’s life and death during a flight journey and he found it difficult to control his emotions.
“I remember reading it on the flight and trying hard to not break down amid people,” he said. “It was intense.”

 

That was when Khan felt a “personal connection with Srinivas’ history”, in the way “he sounded - his motives of coming to the US and just what a sweet person he was.”

This was what prompted Khan, who was already working on a documentary about hate crimes and Islamophobia, to focus on Kuchibhotla. "Obviously people watch it and feel that it's part of the movement," he said, "where immigrants are being targeted and singled out, but at the same time, it's also a really personal story."

Last year, just a week after Kuchibhotla's death, his wife penned an emotional post on Facebook saying they were planning to start a family when the tragedy struck. “We were planning to expand our own family and had a doctor’s appointment just a few weeks ago,” it said. “I am writing this as it sinks in that this dream of ours is now shattered. I really wish we had a child of our own, in whom I could see Srinivas and make him like Srinu.” 
The note ended with a question, “Do we belong here?”

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