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Migration

BIRTH ON THE BORDER

By Ellie Lobovits

This intimate and personal documentary follows two women from Ciudad Juarez as they cross the U.S.-Mexico border legally to give birth in Texas, putting their hearts and bodies on the line as they confront harassment at the hands of U.S. border officials.

One million people legally cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day in both directions. Among them are women who cross for the purposes of childbirth. With the threat of obstetrical violence in Mexican hospitals and the desire for natural birth with midwives, Gaby and Luisa make the difficult decision to cross the border to El Paso, seeking a safer future for their children. Even with papers, their journeys are uncertain.

Against the backdrop of oppressive U.S. border policy and growing debates over immigration, these women's stories of risk, strength, and resilience shed light on the realities and challenges of life on the border.

DVD (English, Spanish, Color, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 28 minutes

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STILL WATERS

Directed by Peter Gordon

In his tiny, one-room, after hours, free school in Brooklyn, Stephen Haff teaches forty Hispanic kids reading, creative writing and Latin.

A remarkable one-room school in Brooklyn is facing a tough year. It's the run up to the US presidential election and anti-Latino rhetoric is ramped up--an extra source of tension for a hard-pressed Hispanic community already threatened by gentrification and eviction.

The school, Still Waters in a Storm, is the creation of Yale grad Stephen Haff. A passionate critic of mainstream education, he believes in the joy of learning without tests and the innate creativity of children and insists that the school is free. It survives precariously on the thinnest of shoestrings.

When regular school finishes, Still Waters starts working. Stephen and his group of children explore, with the help of illustrious guest writers like twice Booker Prizewinner Peter Carey, the power of storytelling, creativity and community. And along the way they discuss Donald Trump and gentrification with humor and passion.

Filmed over a year STILL WATERS follows this compelling man, his philosophy, the spirit of the children who attend, and the dreams and fears of their immigrant Hispanic community.

DVD / 2017 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 79 minutes

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DON'T TELL ANYONE (NO LE DIGAS A NADIE)

By Mikaela Shwer

Since the age of 4, Angy Rivera has lived in the United States with a secret that threatens to upend her life: She is undocumented. Angy arrived with her mother, fleeing violence, poverty, and civil war in their native Colombia. For 20 years they live in the shadows, struggling to stay afloat financially and avoid deportation while battling a complex and inequitable immigration system. "Don't tell anyone" is a phrase whispered often and branded deeply on the consciousness of all who are undocumented.

Now 24, unable to pay tuition for college and facing an uncertain future, Angy joins the youth-led New York State Youth Leadership Council (YLC) with whom she dons a bullhorn at pro-immigration rallies, telling all who will listen that she is "undocumented and proud." Rivera becomes an activist for undocumented youth with a popular advice blog "Ask Angy" and a YouTube channel boasting more than 27,000 views. She steps out of the shadows a second time to share her story of sexual abuse, an experience all too common among undocumented women. DON'T TELL ANYONE (NO LE DIGAS A NADIE) follows Rivera's remarkable journey from poverty in rural Colombia to the front page of The New York Times

DVD (Color) / 2015 / 75 minutes

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EAST OF SALINAS

Directed by Laura Pacheco, Jackie Mow

Jose Anzaldo is an excellent student with a bright future except that he is undocumented, the child of migrant farm laborers in California's Salinas Valley.

EAST OF SALINAS begins with 3rd grader Jose Anzaldo telling us what he wants to be when he grows up. His parents work from sun up to sun down in the heart of California's "Steinbeck Country," the Salinas Valley. With little support available at home, Jose often turns to his teacher, Oscar Ramos, once a migrant farm kid himself. In fourth grade his teacher told him if he worked hard he could have a different life. Oscar won a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley. The day he earned his degree, he bought a car and drove home to the fields. He's been teaching ever since.

Jose is Oscar's most gifted student. But how do you teach students like Jose who have no place to do their homework? How do you teach a kid who moves every few months? This is what Oscar is up against every day. Oscar not only teaches his students reading, math and science, he gives them access to a world beyond their reach.

But Jose was born in Mexico--and he's on the cusp of understanding the implications of that. As we watch this play out over three years, we begin to understand the cruelty of circumstance--for Jose and the many millions of undocumented kids like him.

EAST OF SALINAS asks, What is lost when kids like Jose are denied opportunities?

DVD / 2015 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 53 minutes

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HAND THAT FEEDS, THE

Directed by Rachel Lears, Robin Blotnick

Shy sandwich-maker Mahoma Lopez unites his undocumented immigrant coworkers to fight abusive conditions at a popular New York restaurant chain.

At a popular bakery cafe, residents of New York's Upper East Side get bagels and coffee served with a smile 24 hours a day. But behind the scenes, undocumented immigrant workers face sub-legal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers who will fire them for calling in sick. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma Lopez has never been interested in politics, but in January 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back.

Risking deportation and the loss of their livelihood, the workers team up with a diverse crew of innovative young organizers and take the unusual step of forming their own independent union, launching themselves on a journey that will test the limits of their resolve. In one roller-coaster year, they must overcome a shocking betrayal and a two-month lockout. Lawyers will battle in back rooms, Occupy Wall Street protesters will take over the restaurant, and a picket line will divide the neighborhood. If they can win a contract, it will set a historic precedent for low-wage workers across the country. But whatever happens, Mahoma and his coworkers will never be exploited again.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 84 minutes

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NI AQUI, NI ALLA (NEITHER HERE, NOR THERE)

By Gabriela Bortolamedi

NI AQUI, NI ALLA illuminates the challenges facing undocumented college students and their families around the country. Blanca, a second-year student at the University of California, Berkeley, crossed the border from Mexico into the United States with her parents when she was a child. As a student under the DREAM Act, Blanca has temporary protection from deportation, though her undocumented parents, who live and work in California's agricultural Central Valley, do not. NI AQUI, NI ALLA paints an intimate portrait of an undocumented family as they support each other during a turning point in their lives and stay together through the distance. At a time in this country's history where the debate around immigration is highly contested and demands to close the border are in the daily news, NEITHER HERE, NOR THERE paints a very human face on an issue that many use simply as partisan, political fodder. Essential viewing for Sociology and Multicultural and Immigration Studies.

DVD (Spanish, Color) / 2014 / 24 minutes

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SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO, THE

Directed by Ian Cheney

A quest to understand the origins of this ubiquitous, spicy red chicken dish and to explore the history of Chinese-American food.

This mouthwateringly entertaining film travels the globe to unravel a captivating culinary mystery. General Tso's Chicken is a staple of Chinese-American cooking, and a ubiquitous presence on restaurant menus across the country. But just who was General Tso? And how did his chicken become emblematic of an entire national cuisine?

Director Ian Cheney journeys from Shanghai to New York to the American Midwest and beyond to uncover the origins of this iconic dish, turning up surprising revelations and a host of humorous characters along the way. Told with the verve of a good detective story, THE SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO is as much about food as it is a tale of the American immigrant experience.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 73 minutes

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LAS MARTHAS

By Cristina Ibarra

Unlike any other, the annual debutante ball in Laredo, Texas is part of a lucrative month-long festival honoring George Washington's birthday. LAS MARTHAS follows two young women as they prepare for this elaborate rite of passage: Laurita, a 13th-generation debutante descended from Laredo's original Spanish land grantees who questions debutante society's class system geared toward girls like herself; and Rosario, a high-achieving, Mexican-raised and U.S.-schooled outsider struggling to understand the elite society's unspoken rules.

Tracing the event's origins back to 1898, the film works to unravel why a town like Laredo - with a population that is 98% Mexican - feels such affinity for America's Founding Father. Despite history and all odds, the celebration perseveres and flourishes thanks to the Mexican American girls who wear the gilded burden of our past. LAS MARTHAS is a beautifully drawn and sometimes humorous, coming of age portrait of these two young women as they navigate this complex tradition in a time of economic uncertainty and political tension over immigration and Border relations between the US and Mexico.

DVD (Color) / 2013 / 69 minutes

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FUTURE FOOD: STAY OR GO? (CHINA)

Directed by Alex Gabbay

Who will grow China's food as young people leave the countryside for the cities?

In many remote areas of China young people have little choice but to stay on the land, and yet they may face a destitute future, with millions of farmworkers in China earning less than two dollars a day. Although there are some exceptions, farming is not generally seen as a "sexy" career choice.

The reality is that in China and around the world, young people are fleeing the countryside and moving to the big cities. Who will grow the food that feeds future generations? How can young people be convinced that farming is a good option? Californian-born Rand and his wife Sherry are the founders of Resonance China, a social media agency in Shanghai. They use the internet to create and identify trends and tricks that can create a buzz for global brands. FUTURE FOOD sets Resonance a task: can they make farming popular with young people?

DVD / 2012 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 29 minutes

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BETTER LIFE, A: UNA VIDA MEJOR

By Olivia Carrescia

After 30 years of war, a difficult peace, migration, economic, social and cultural upheaval, for her new film Olivia Carrescia returns to Todos Santos, to examine the changes that have taken place. The Todos Santeros now have cell phones, TV's and large cinderblock houses, but are they better off?

The civil strife of the 1980's ended in the official Peace Accord of 1996, but left many of the conflict's underlying social and economic problems unresolved. An increasing number of Todos Santos, rather than traveling as they had done for generations to the coastal cotton plantations, began traveling back and forth to the U.S. - legally or illegally. They sent back cash remittances that those who were left behind used for household necessities, and later for clothes, electronics and other items. Before long, homes similar to those the migrants saw in the United States and in the luxury resorts of Cancun, Mexico, began springing up in this traditional Mayan village. As a result, Todos Santos grew and prospered, becoming a commercial hub in the northwestern mountains of Guatemala.

But the prosperity was not to last. Long term migration and the economic crisis of 2008 in the U.S. has had severe repercussions in this once small mountain village.
In A BETTER LIFE we meet again Santiaga, the weaver and resourceful homemaker, Benito, the former school teacher, and Desiderio, the wise environmentalist - all familiar to those who have seen the Todos Santos trilogy of films. Along with returning migrants and newly introduced villagers, young and old, the impact of profound change and altered expectations is explored with the sensitivity, awareness and insight that have characterized this documentary series.

DVD (Color) / 2011 / 52 minutes

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BROTHER TOWNS / PUEBLOS HERMANOS

Directed by Charles D. Thompson, Jr. and Michael Davey

An uplifting story about Jupiter, Florida's humane response to an influx of day laborers from Jacaltenango, Guatemala.

Brother Towns is a story of two towns linked by immigration, family, and work: Jacaltenango, a highland Maya town in Guatemala; and Jupiter, a coastal resort town where many Jacaltecos have settled in Florida.

Brother Towns chronicles a story of how and why people migrate across borders, how people make and remake their communities when they travel thousands of miles from home, and how people maintain families despite their travel. Because we are all immigrants, this is a universal human story, and a quintessential American one. All of us understand family.

Brother Towns is also a story of local and international controversy. News of undocumented immigrants is familiar in nearly every community across the U.S., and citizens must choose how they respond to this issue.

Our story includes voices of those opposed to undocumented immigrants as well as advocates helping migrants who seek work and hope, whether documented or not.

DVD / 2010 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 58 minutes

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WHICH WAY HOME - ORIGINAL

Directed by Rebecca Cammisa

The personal side of immigration as child migrants from Mexico and Central America risk everything to make it to the US riding atop freight trains.

As the United States continues to build a wall between itself and Mexico, WHICH WAY HOME shows the personal side of immigration through the eyes of children who face harrowing dangers with enormous courage and resourcefulness as they endeavor to make it to the United States.

The film follows several unaccompanied child migrants as they journey through Mexico en route to the U.S. on a freight train they call " The Beast." Director Rebecca Cammisa ("Sister Helen") tracks the stories of children like Olga and Freddy, nine-year old Hondurans who are desperately trying to reach their families in Minnesota, and Jose, a ten-year-old El Salvadoran who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention center, and focuses on Kevin, a canny, streetwise 14-year-old Honduran, fleeing an abusive stepfather, and whose mother hopes that he will reach New York City and send money back to his family. These are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow. They are the ones you never hear about - the invisible ones.

DVD / 2009 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 83 minutes

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MAYAN TRILOGY, A: LIFE, DEATH & MIGRATION

By Olivia Carrescia

Filmed over 15 years, beginning with her classic documentary TODOS SANTOS CUCHUMATAN: Report from a Guatemala Village (1982), Olivia Carrescia's three films on the Mayan Indians of Guatemala preserve a record, and provide an acute observation on how the indigenous culture has been affected by, yet survived, that country's tumultuous history.

The trilogy starts with TODOS SANTOS CUCHUMATAN which provides an intimate look at everyday life in Todos Santos, a village in Guatemala's highlands, before the civil war of the mid 1980's, and ominously illustrates social changes in the lives of Guatemalan Indians leading to the political upheaval.

Seven years later in TODOS SANTOS: THE SURVIVORS (1989) the filmmaker returns to find the once quiet village she had documented changed forever by the political turmoil. A haunting look underneath the silence which blanketed Guatemala, the film records the legacy of a bloody civil war, and the wounds that remain unhealed even after the guns have stopped firing.

Fleeing this violence, many Mayan families emigrated to the United States. Set in Florida and Massachusetts, MAYAN VOICES: AMERICAN LIVES (1994) contrasts their experiences as refugees with the struggles of those continuing to arrive in search of better lives. The film also explores issues of identity, cultural integration, migration, and social change.

This collection of three films is a unique, essential document of the recent history and evolving society of an indigenous Central American community.

DVD (Color) / 2008 / 155 minutes

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RAIN IN A DRY LAND

Directed by Anne Makepeace

Two Somali Bantu families leave behind a legacy of slavery in Africa and find new homes in urban America.

In 2004, thirteen thousand Somali Bantu refugees realized their dream of coming to America. They are now living in fifty cities across the country, becoming the largest African group from a single minority to settle in the United States at one time.

RAIN IN A DRY LAND chronicles two years in the lives of two extended Somali Bantu families as they leave behind a two-hundred year legacy of oppression in Africa to face new challenges in a strange new land. The film begins in January, 2004, at the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where our featured families are stunned by what they learn about America in their "Cultural Orientation" class: refrigerators, stoves, bathtubs, elevators, stairs, buildings taller than one storey, schools, and all the things we take for granted in modern life. As their awe and excitement grow, the audience fears for them. How will these illiterate Muslim farmers who speak no English manage to survive in America?

These opening scenes in Kakuma introduce our featured families, both dynamic, charismatic, and very different in nature. Arbai is quick, strong, affectionate, a single mother of four with a great sense of humor and an easy contagious laugh, despite her devastating past.

Madina is fierce, vulnerable, wounded, strong; her husband Aden is volatile, moody, soulful, determined to provide for his huge family but uncertain and a bit naive about the life that lies ahead. Their witty, resourceful teenage sons, Ali (17) and Warsame (15), figure prominently in the film, as do Arbai's beautiful teenage daughters, Sahara (13) and Khadija (16).

The documentary follows these two families to America and through their first two years in their new homes. Aden and Madina, sponsored by Jewish Family Service, settle in the grim mill-town of Springfield, Massachusetts; while Arbai's family settles in Atlanta.

Despite racism, poverty, failures of the school system, and severe culture shock, both families do find ways to survive in America, and to create a safe haven for their war-torn families. The film ends with two vivid celebrations: the naming ceremony of Aden and Madina's first American-born child; and the traditional wedding of Arbai's oldest daughter, a colorful reunion of hundreds of Somali Bantu families converging on Atlanta from all over America.

DVD (Color) / 2006 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 82 minutes

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GREAT WONDER, A: LOST CHILDREN OF SUDAN

Documents the difficult transition of three of the "Lost Boys and Girls" of Sudan to life as immigrants in Seattle, WA

More than 2 million Sudanese have died in the longest uninterrupted civil war in the world, now in its 20th year. Another 5 million civilians have fled their homes to escape the fighting.

A GREAT WONDER traces the extraordinary journey of three young Sudanese orphans, a fraction of the 17,000 so-called "Lost Boys" of Sudan, who have spent the majority of their lives either in flight from war or in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Northern Kenya. Having navigated the hazards of warfare, disease and starvation, their arrival and resettlement in Seattle, WA, is not your average immigration story.

Over the course of 18 months, these youths have recorded their own experiences through their own eyes and in their own words using digital video cameras. The resulting "diaries" serve as a personal thread throughout the film, incorporating first-hand accounts of their experiences in war with their radically different lives as immigrants in America.

A story of survival in its most elemental form, A GREAT WONDER explores the concepts of loss, faith, community and freedom as it bears witness to the spirit that drives these young people to rebuild their lives.

DVD (Color) / 2003 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 61 minutes

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FROM THE OTHER SIDE

By Chantal Akerman

The story is old as the hills, yet every day it continues to unfold, every day more terribly.

Sometimes poor people, in an attempt to survive, risk their lives and leave everything behind to live elsewhere. But they're not wanted elsewhere. And if they are wanted it's for their labor, to do jobs that no one wants to do. Some will pay for others to do those jobs, but not much.

In FROM THE OTHER SIDE, elsewhere is the United States and the poor are mostly Mexicans. Renowned filmmaker Chantal Akerman shifts her focus between the border towns of Agua Prieta, Sonora, where people from all over Mexico wait in limbo before crossing over, and neighboring Douglas, Arizona, a town ringed by mountains and desert plains.

For years, immigrants passed through San Diego. But now the INS, using cutting edge technologies developed during the Vietnam War and perfected for the Gulf War, has managed to quell the flow of illegals there. This leaves only the mountains and deserts of Arizona for those desperate enough to try their luck.

The film opens with a series of interviews with Mexicans in Agua Prieta, many of whom have family members that have perished while crossing the border. In another interview, a local sheriff in Arizona comments on the government's crackdown as "a bad strategy and a bad plan," calling the elevated death toll "a calculated consequence."

The INS calculated that the hardship and danger, the cold and the heat in Arizona, would stop the crossings, but you can't stop someone who's hungry. But you fear him. Fear the other; fear his filth, the disease he may be bringing in. Fear invasion. But never fear to kill him.

DVD (Color) / 2002 / 99 minutes

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CITY LIFE: THE OTHER SIDE

Poor Mexicans attempt perilous border crossing to US, often at the expense of family, traditional culture, and their lives.

Over the last century, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans have crossed the border to the United States in pursuit of permanent jobs, and a better life. But in the new millennium, that journey has become increasingly dangerous, and the costs are starting to outweigh the benefits.

This program from the City Life series reveals the devastating impact of Mexican-US migration. The people who attempt to cross suffer horribly and frequently die. The families and communities left behind are disabled and their languages and cultures are being destroyed. The Other Side tells the story of the villagers who have had enough -- and now are trying to make sure their children will no longer have to migrate to realize their dreams.

DVD (Color) / 2001 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 27 minutes

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ABANDONED: THE BETRAYAL OF AMERICA'S IMMIGRANTS

Expose of the horrifying results of the 1996 immigration law.

This film illustrates the most recent wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States. Through a close look at the personal impact of new immigration laws, this film depicts the severity of current detention and deportation policies. Lives are changed forever, as legal residents find themselves being torn away from their American families and sent to countries they barely know. For political asylum seekers, dreams are put on hold, as they are kept for years in county jails that profit from their incarceration.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2000 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 55 minutes

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NATION OF IMMIGRANTS, A

This program traces the history of immigration in the united States from the Pilgrims' landing to the Signing of the Immigration Act of 1965. immigrants' continuing contributions to the development of our culture and society are emphasized throughout.

DVD / 16 minutes

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