Raced and Gendered Roads Attempt to reach the Same End
Its funny how two movies with a similar gimmick can reap such different products. In Finding Angela Shelton, the use of a common name brings together a group of women of various race, class, and geographical location. However, the focus of the film shifts from the commonality they all share, to the process that Angela goes through in order to find closure. Angela shies away from showcasing each women as one related to her race or class, instead choosing the highlight the ways in which the women conform a story of abuse. The road becomes a way in which victims reach out to one another (or how one victim in particular reaches out to others). Angela's quest becomes extremely gendered, with women propelling and explaining the narrative. Angela focuses on each women's relationships with men (primarily those involving abuse), rape experiences, and their struggle to push through the trauma of abuse. Although race is mentioned, it the a crusade for women's recovery, the "quest", that drives Angela.
The Grace Lee Project operates under the same premise of gathering individuals together using a very common name, however the road is employed to find answers concerning the dichotomy between individuality and conformity. Grace attempts to both disprove the sameness of the typical "Grace Lee", while simultaneously pointing out the uncanny similarities of each women. The road becomes both an invisible (in the case of the internet) and visible (highway/plane/etc) network to connect individuals who share the same name and race. Although there were Grace Lees who were not Asian, the Grace does not use the road to reach them. The road does become "raced", due to Grace's specific focus on the Asian Grace Lee. Although the Lees are all women, this is not the focus of the "quest", but merely incidental.
Both films use an 'identity' bestowed upon an individual at birth: the name. However each film narrows the purpose and focus of the quest by choosing to highlight another aspect of identity: gender and race. Each of these is unalterable (unlike a name), and determines much more of the outcome of your life than a name. Perhaps this is why each director chose to hone in on another aspect of identity. They came to understand how these aspects define the direction of one's line (and their particular journey) much more than a title.