A screening at Day Worker Center of Mountain View
September 9, 2009
The message of La Americana helps to deepen and broaden understanding of the immigrant experience, across and within communities. This message was central for viewers at the screening held at the Day Worker Center of Mountain View, CA.
One of the most important messages the staff and volunteers at the Day Worker Center try to convey to workers there is that the fight they are engaging in is not one they are engaging in by themselves. “Hope and a renewable sense of challenge and triumph is something the immigrant rights movement has to maintain. Sharing our personal stories and insights, though they may individually contain tragedies and disappointments, helps to create that sense of community we need in these strange, tense times,” said screening organizer, Day Worker Center volunteer and student, Natalie Ramirez.
“The Day Worker Center of Mountain View is first and foremost a non-profit working to uphold standards of dignity and respect we know the jornaleros in our community deserve. I think La Americana illustrates perfectly the strong, heroic character those of us in this movement see everyday, but which still needs to be conveyed to the American public at large.”
The screening audience held a discussion afterward which touched on such themes as general and generational motivations behind immigration, the limbo and uncertainty of “ownership” while undocumented, the “American Dream” as theory, and the immigrant as a professional of many trades by necessity.
Even among the immigrant workers, themselves, the film was a wonderful tool for building understanding of the range and the universality of the immigrant experience. “I felt it was beneficial to show other stories of immigrants in the United States as a whole since a lot of the jornaleros we work with may only be conscious of the immigrant environment in California,” said Ms. Ramirez. “We shared our opinions, histories, and our vision for the future with one another- very productive.”
Click here to host a screening in your community: http://www.peoplestelevision.com/host
Screening at Queens Community House
August 28, 2009
Queens Community House, post-screening website viewing
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.
Classroom Screening, Queens Community House
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?
August 28, 2009
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
August 27, 2009
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.”
NYCLU to Host a La Americana Screening at ArtRage Gallery!
June 26, 2009
As part of our summer line-up…NYCLU (Central Region Chapter) to host a La Americana Screening at ArtRage Gallery on August 11, 2009 !
About NYCLU (Central Region Chapter)
Chapter Director: Barrie Gewanter
The New York Civil Liberties Union, the New York affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, promotes and defends the fundamental principles and values embodied in the Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution and New York State Constitution, including freedom of speech and religion, and the right to privacy, equality and due process of law. We carry out our mission through public education, advocacy and litigation.
The Central New York Chapter, founded in 1963, is the official voice of the NYCLU in the region. The chapter serves Onondaga, Madison, Oneida, Seneca, Oswego, Cortland and Cayuga counties. CLICK HERE to find out more…
About ArtRage Gallery
Director: Rose Viviano
ArtRage Mission
The ArtRage mission is to exhibit progressive art that inspires resistance and promotes social awareness; supports social justice, challenges preconceptions and encourages cultural change. Each exhibit will be in collaboration with one or more community organizations in an effort to support their work, expand the traditional viewing “audience” and become a catalyst for organized action. Through collaborative networking, we intend to broadly appeal to people who would ordinarily never set foot in an art gallery. Our goal is to provide ArtRage visitors with an experience that encourages the breakdown of boundaries so that people can see themselves in the work and then in one another. And that, we believe, is the seed of a movement for cultural and social change. CLICK HERE to find out more…
