How to Have an American Baby

Part of Bay Visions and co-presented by AmDoc/POV and Bay Area Chinese Culture Salon

Q&A after the film with director Leslie Tai and moderator Valerie Soe

Tracing the underground birth tourism industry from Beijing to Los Angeles, HOW TO HAVE AN AMERICAN BABY is a feature-length creative documentary that takes us behind the closed doors of the booming shadow economy catering to Chinese tourists who travel to the U.S. to give birth—in order to obtain U.S. citizenship for their babies.

Told through a series of intimately observed, interwoven storylines, we meet expectant mothers, maternity hotel operators and operator wannabes, local doctors and civic officials, birth tourism agents in China, and the nannies, cooks, and chauffeurs that fuel this industry. Inside bedrooms, delivery rooms, and private family meetings, the story of a hidden global economy emerges – depicting the aspirations and anxieties, fortunes and tragedies that befall the ordinary people caught in the web of its influence.