Grace and Angela
Both films, Searching for Angela Shelton and the Grace Lee Project, use "the quest" and "the road" in order to tie all of the stories and women they find on the road together. Both women are on a quest, one on a road to recovery and the other to find her identity, and they do this by finding other women and listening to their stories and through them, both Angela and Grace do eventually "find" themselves and complete their quest. Although one main difference is that in the Grace Lee Project, the road isn't as prevalant in the film as in Angela's and we actually only see one or two sequences when Grace is actually on the road. In addition, Grace stays behind the camera more than Angela and seems to play more of a passive role in her quest - which allows her interviews and the other Grace's stories to tie the film together more than the road itself. Whereas in Angela's film, the road is more necessary to connect everyone as not all of the Angela Sheltons that she meets have been abused or share her same story.
I think that in both documentaries the road is gendered but only in the Grace Lee Project is the road also raced. In Searching for Angela Shelton the road is gendered in the way that Angela focuses on only women abuse. Granted searching for only "Angelas" limits the film to female abuse but in addition all of the facts and statistics that she put on screen were related to women's abuse. In the Grace Lee Project, however, the road is seemingly gendered by default in the fact that she is looking for Graces which are usually female. But for Grace Lee, her road is raced. She does this by defining the stereotype of Asian women and then in her search she tries to defy the stereotype of the quiet, smart, passive Asian woman in order to find her identity. And in all of these stereotypical "perfect" Asian women Grace does in fact find an identity after speaking with all of the women. Although both films try and connect stories and people through the road, a quest, and through a name, it's amazing how different the films are from one another and how the different styles of the films play such a huge role in how the audience responds to them.