In November 2011, the White House launched the "What’s Your Story" video challenge, asking the AAPI community to submit videos about the "issues that matter the most" to them. The Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders office received over 200 submissions and narrowed it down to 10 videos the public could vote on. But the video with the most votes (by a landslide) was ignored in the end.

The film that earned the highest numbers of votes, "My Asian Americana," looks at the intersection between the criminal justice system and immigration. The video features a dozen men and women talking about being deported to a country they don’t know and what they remember and miss from the United States.

The videos submitted "remind us of why we do the work we do here to make sure your voices are heard," a White House staffer says in a video thanking those who submitted videos. "With your help we’ll invite an exceptional group of finalists hear to the White House to share their stories in person with officials from President Obama’s administration," says another staffer in the video.

But the filmmakers say the White House "formally refused to invite" them to an April 5th, 2012 event that included the finalists.