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On December 2nd, Alile Sharon Larkin’s Your Children Come Back to You screened as part of the L.A. Rebellion series. It struck a cord with me, as the issues of cultural tug-of-war and social class are just as strong today as they were when the film was made in 1979.
In an interview held by those conducting the L.A. Rebellion project, Larkin says she was inspired to make Your Children Come Back to You after a Black co-worker continually talked to her about Europe and traveling to Europe. She also was also quite interested in the issues of social class and income disparity at the time, and liked working with children. This film address both the issues of the pull of two different cultures and that of social class, through the eyes of a little girl, Tovi.
In Your Children Come Back to You, Tovi is torn between the culture of her financially struggling mother and that of her relatvely wealthy aunt Chris. Tovi is pressured by both her mother and aunt to accept their culture, her mother more of a Pan African nationalist and her aunt a Europhile. Tovi, in the end chooses the path of her mother who refuses to assimilate.
The pressure to assimilate to the mainstream western culture is still a strong issue for people from communities in the US that have their own strong cultural and value system. Tovi’s struggle to choose between her aunt and her mother is common and relevant today. As a child, I was pulled between the culture of my community in an agrarian region on Maui, and that of mainstream America. I unfortunately rejected that of my community in favor of the mainstream and am filled with regret over this decision. Many of my friends fantasized about moving to the Mainland USA to escape their parents and the culture of their parents, similar to the woman that inspired Larkin to write the piece.
Seeing Larkin’s film touched me with its specificity and universality.
—Moana Sherrill
