2023 | United States | Documentary

How to Have an American Baby

  • Mandarin, English 117 mins
  • Director | Leslie Tai
  • Writer | -
  • Producer | Leslie Tai, Jillian Schultz

STATUS: Released

This film is currently not available.   

A nuanced, behind-the-scenes look into the booming shadow economy catering to pregnant Chinese tourists who travel to America to give birth in order to obtain U.S. citizenship for their babies. Told through a series of observational vignettes, and with extraordinary access to the maternity hotel industry and their clients, the film outlines the invisible contours of the underground birth tourism industry and its unexpected actors in the U.S. and China, while probing deeply into the lives of several protagonists caught up in the phenomenon. An intimate and compassionate portrait of women’s reproductive journeys, family, traditions, and capitalist desires. – Ruth Somalo 

Pregnant Chinese Tourist Citizenship Birth Women