Secret Orchard Party: How 1980s Punjabi Farm Workers Threw Yuba City's Biggest Prom

Picture this: it’s the 1980s in Yuba City, and a group of Punjabi farm laborers are locked out of the classic American high school experience. Prom? Not happening. The social climate was conservative, they were newcomers navigating a new country, and their families were focused on survival—not school dances. So they did what resourceful teenagers do: they threw their own party, and it became the stuff of local legend.

That’s the beating heart of“Harvest Party at Camp Two,”a short documentary making its debut at the 10th annual Sacramento Asian Pacific Film Festival, which kicked off Friday at The Sofia. Filmmaker Rajan Gill isn’t just documenting history here—he’s reclaiming his own family’s story. The characters in the film? His father and his uncle, reliving the night they and their friends decided to create their own version of belonging in the darkness of the orchards where they worked.

What started as a quiet escape spiraled into something bigger. That secret gathering became, according to Gill, the biggest party the town had ever seen—the kind of story that gets passed down at dinner tables and only now finds its way onto screen. It’s a reminder that the American experience isn’t monolithic, and sometimes the most memorable moments happen when people refuse to sit on the sidelines.

The festival itself is marking a milestone: a full decade of platforming Asian Pacific American filmmakers and stories that might otherwise go untold. William Gow and Rajan Gill told KCRA 3 that this year’s lineup is the strongest yet, spanning local filmmakers, documentaries, shorts, and feature films organized into six programs. Tickets are $15 for general admission, $5 for seniors and youth, and the festival runs through Sunday. If you’re looking for cinema that goes beyond Hollywood’s usual narratives, this is your moment.

These aren’t just feel-good stories—they’re acts of preservation. In a town like Sacramento, where Asian American communities have deep roots but sometimes shallow visibility, festivals like this one do essential work: they say,“Your story matters. Your grandparents’stories matter. And we’re going to tell them.”