pay a price for their doctrines. Theirnno-tech pacifism made it impossible tonprotect themselves or the frontier withnlethal force. And, as anthropologistnMary Douglas and political scientistnAaron Wildavsky remind us in Risknand Culture (University of CalifornianPress, 1982), the Amish are forevernaccusing one another of sinister alliancesnwith the outside world and thennexpelling those judged guilty (as almostnhappens to Rachel in Witness).nStill, researchers have found that,nthrough time, the Amish and kindredncommunities (Mennonites and Hutterites)ndo eventually make accommodationsnto the surrounding society.nAlthough they do not normally proselytize,nconverts are reluctantly accepted.nJohn Book declines that option, asnwill most viewers, but Witness is annexciting picture with superb acting.nThough the depiction of the Amishnseems to be sympathetic, the press hasnreported complaints from somenAmish. How would they know? Theynare not supposed to watch movies.nWill they now threaten boycott of thentheaters?nActually “based on a true story,”nAlamo Bay dramatizes the inter-ethnicnconflicts that arise when Vietnamesenimmigrants settle in a Gulf Texas fishingntown. Director Louis Malic, anFrench “enfant terrible,” told NewnYork Times Sunday Magazine (April 7,n1985) that the movie shows us then”outsider’s need to belong.” But it isnnot clear just who the real “outsiders”nare, nor is it clear—at least until thenvery end^who has been cast as thenfilm’s hero.nAt the center of the action is Gloryn(Amy Madigan), a pretty blond whonruns a shrimp fishery with her recentlynwidowed father, who does businessnwith a local Vietnam veteran namednShang (Ed Harris). He is having annaffair with Glory while trying to supportnhis family through fishing. Thenpair become estranged when Gloryndefends the Vietnamese and Shangnjoins forces with the local Ku Kluxn44 / CHRONICLES OF CULTUREnKlan in trying to drive the refugees outnof town. The leader of the Vietnamese,nDinh, tries to explain to the nativenTexans that his countrymen want onlynthe right to work and enjoy theirnearnings, a right denied them inntheir native land by the invadingncommunists.nThe explanations fall on deaf ears,nthough, and the Asians are forced tonleave town. When Dinh and a fewnfriends later return to help Glory afternher sick father dies, hostilities erupt,nbringing the movie to a violent climax,ntypical of the old Western. Indeed,nDinh wears a cowboy hat and bootsnand is dubbed “the last cowboy left innTexas” by Glory when she hears hownas a child he had survived for daysnalone in the jungle, eating grass, whilenhiding from the Vietcong who raidednhis village and killed relatives andnneighbors. But in the end, “the lastncowboy” needs to be rescued by anwoman: Glory saves Dinh’s life bynshooting Shang.nThe difficulties of the Vietnamesenrefugees depicted in Alamo Bay arennot atypical. Since the fall of Saigon inn1975, about a quarter-of-a-million Vietnamesenhave come to the U.S. Thenlargest communities are still found innCalifornia’s cities, but some Indochinesenhave moved into coastalnfishing areas and elsewhere. It is ironicnthat antitotalitarian exiles who fleentheir sovietized lands to find freedomnare sometimes regarded with almost asnmuch suspicion and distrust as the foesnthey left behind. The experiences ofnEastern Europeans after World War 11nand more recently of the Cuban boatnpeople have often paralleled that of thenVietnamese.nThis country has gained strengthnfrom the successive waves of immigrantsnescaping political and religiousnpersecution. After all, that is why thenAmish — and the Pilgrims — camenhere, too. But one also needs to understandnthe uneasiness faced by isolatedncommunities when outsiders with unfamiliarnphysical features, peculiarncustoms, and a strange tongue suddenlynarrive en masse. The film handlesnthese issues without really taking sides.nIt deals with the human anguish inherentnin the mutual adaptationnprocesses—a pain that may not benavoidable, paradoxically, in a pluralistic,nopen society such as ours.nnnDespite innumerable barriers, thenVietnamese—like other new Americansn(especially of Asian extraction)n—seem to be doing well here by mostnstandards. As the film depicts, thejrnsuccess is largely due to their resiliencynand drive, qualities which are, in thenlong run, compatible with Americannculture, even though these characteristicsnmay cause frictions initially. “Wenthought the Vietnamese only wantednto work … for us,” says a redneck innAlamo Bay, “but now they want to buyntheir own boats!” Entrepreneurship,nthat quintessenhally American characteristic,nturns refugees into competitorsnand fosters new social animosities.nAnd while Witness concludes happily,nwith good people—metropolitan andnAmish—prevailing over evil, the endingnof Alamo Bay is ambivalent andnanguished, reminiscent of a Greekntragedy: after killing her former lover.nGlory must go to jail. Perhaps onenmessage is that while America hasndeveloped a kind of nostalgic affectionnfor its Amish, the difficulties of adjustingnto the presence of newcomers isnnot yet over. ccnRoland Alum is a political anthropologistnat ]ohn Jay College of Criminaln]ustice/City University of New York.nTom Rojas is a journalist with thenWall Street Journal.nARTnThe Man WhonLoved Birdsnby Shehbaz H. Safranin” drew, I looked upon nature only; myndays were happy beyond human conception.”nJohn James Audubon, whonwrote these words, was born 200 yearsnago in Les Cayes, Haiti. To this day,nhe remains unrivaled as the greatestnpainter of birds, with the possible exceptionnof Edward Lear (1812-1888).nUnlike Audubon, though, Lear paintednbirds only for a short part of hisncareer and soon moved on to paintingntopographical views and to writingnsome of the best limericks and nonsensenrhymes in English literature.nIn celebration of the 200th anniversarynof Audubon’s birth. The Newn