Screening at Queens Community House

La Americana was utilized this summer during the two screenings held for the Queens Community House in Jackson Heights, Queens.

There was a lot of discussion by mothers in the room who, like the story’s protagonist, have made the painful decision to travel away from their families to find work in the U.S. As one viewer put it, “This film shows that their stories are also important, legitimate and do not deserve to be hidden. Our discussion following the movie brought up both personal stories similar to Carmen’s and also questions and comments about US immigration laws. Overall it was a great educational and organizing tool.”

Another viewer participant talked about her own experience as an immigrant from Peru who left her two sons behind 4 years ago to come to the US. They were 16 and 20 at the time. About 9 months ago, one of her sons was in a car accident and has been have physical and psychological problems ever since. She spoke of how difficult it is to be apart when your children are suffering and of her deep desire to bring them both to the US to join her.

Anna Dioguardi, Director of Community Organizing and Development at QCH said, “For me, as a community organizer, La Americana provided  the opportunity to promote conversation and dialogue about immigration reform and the need to build a base of support and participation in order to fight for its passage. It’s a great tool to help people relate their own personal struggles to the more global struggle for rights, equality and opportunity for all immigrants in this country.”

Contributors: Anna Dioguardi, Director of Community Organizing and Development, Queens Community House, and screening participants.

Click here to host a screening in your community: http://www.peoplestelevision.com/host

Learn more about Queens Community House

Why host a screening of La Americana?

La Americana allows all of us to watch a film wherein the main character is an immigrant, and a mother, with a story that parallels many other immigrant’s stories. This opportunity is rare, when much of the debate about immigration reform involves separating people who are immigrants from their humanity – as well as their sense of security, history, culture and, all too often, family.  This then enables dehumanizing attitudes and practices to set a troubling tone for what should be our greater understanding of the complexities of our own and other people’s lives and our interconnectedness as people, regardless of our nationalities, economic status or the languages we speak.

When we allow ourselves as a society to see or experience any group of people as less than human, we guarantee that group will suffer greater hardships and even threats to their dignity, not to mention our own. In so disregarding people’s humanity, we assure that any potential policy “reform” about issues of immigration will ultimately fail. This is because if we disregard the very root causes and reasons people migrate, motivations that that arise from personal, emotional, political and economic happenings in our lives, and from one of the most human of urges – to survive – then any policy proposed will miss its mark.

Folks all around the country can challenge themselves to setting this intention by making space and time for La Americana. Hailed as “a great empowerment tool,” one that encourages and requires deeper discussion and more humane thinking from all of us about what our values are as people, as well as how we value people who are immigrants, this film is available to community, faith and policy groups just for the asking.

Over the next few months, we will be inviting our partners to share their screening stories here on this blog.

Stay tuned!

En la lucha,

Angela

click here to host a screening in your community: http://www.peoplestelevision.com/host

Feminist Review: La Americana

http://feministreview.blogspot.com/2009/08/la-americana.html

Excerpt:

“I was surprised to realize that I’d never been allowed such emotional access to an illegal immigrant before. Bruckman has done something truly revolutionary by concentrating on this woman’s story: he’s personalized a group of people that has typically been pluralized and portrayed as a single mass, a collective “issue.” With the help of his film, perhaps those who still have trouble breaking that convention will at least begin to see illegal immigrants as people rather than a problem.”