Sisterz in Zion

Posted by Johnna | May 29, 2008 | 9 Comments

“In Utah, it’s… there’s a lot of… caucasians that live there.”

I love the film documentary Sisterz in Zion, which is showing on BYU-TV tonight at 9 p.m. A video portrait of a handful of young women of color in New York City, converts, some of whom are immigrants from other countries, who are the only LDS person in their separate schools, sometimes in their families. We meet these teens as their leaders decide to arrange for them to attend an EFY conference in Provo. It is a cool opportunity to meet other kids with their same standards–and a place where they feel unexpectedly more out of place than ever.

A long time ago I was a suburban kid from Los Angeles on my first trip to Utah–Utah can be strange when you are a teenager from somewhere else, with the casual primacy the people seems to claim on the gospel and their culture, that doesn’t seem to mesh with who you are or speak to the circumstances or intensity of your own experience.

If you get BYU-TV, Sisterz in Zion will be on tonight at 9 p.m. MST. Worth seeing, and in this case free. It’s a small epiphany you can schedule.

I’m no where near BYU-TV of course. I bought the DVD last year, so I could see it and watch it again whenever I want. They didn’t have time to show the whole thing between those conference sessions in 2006.

And, if you collect cool websites, the one for this documentary is darling.
http://www.sisterzinzion.com/

Comments

9 Responses to “Sisterz in Zion”

brittney c
May 29th, 2008 @ 11:33 am

Thanks for the info, Johnna! Sounds awesome. This:

“In Utah, it’s… there’s a lot of… caucasians that live there.”

made me laugh and reminded me of ZZ Packer’s short story “Brownies,” which, if anyone is looking for a good, quick read, is also awesome.

Bummed I don’t have BYU-TV (or tv in general) for this one.
Shelah
May 29th, 2008 @ 12:54 pm

oh cool, I’m excited that you posted this. I’m going to put a link to it on fMh.
Erin
May 29th, 2008 @ 1:54 pm

FYI, BYU-TV is available free online at byu.tv

It’s on demand, so if you can’t watch it tonight, you can tune in anytime in the next 2 or 3 weeks, select the date and time you want to see, and voila!
Wendy
May 30th, 2008 @ 12:04 am

Thanks, Johnna! I loved seeing it when they showed it in 2006. I didn’t know they didn’t show the whole thing. The DVD is on my wish list.
Les
May 30th, 2008 @ 5:18 pm

I liked it alot- I think I could appreciate it especially as an east coast gal and after working in an inner city branch.
Tanya Spackman
May 31st, 2008 @ 10:38 am

I love Sisterz in Zion. It’s well done and interesting. I’d been trying to get our YW president to show it some Mutual night, but she wasn’t interested. So about a year ago I was asked to substitute one of the youth Sunday School classes, but it was Saturday night when I was asked, and the person had absolutely no idea what lesson they were on anyway, so I showed the kids this movie. It went over quite well.
Jason
August 21st, 2009 @ 9:59 pm

I just watched this on BYU TV and it was very touching. Watching these girls from NYC was very inspirational.
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