Reality Tour--Immigrants and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty
A journey from the U.S. to Mexico along the immigrant trail took place from July 29-August 7 2007.
Most North Americans have only a vague understanding of immigration issues. Our immigration laws are in desperate need of reform, but rarely in the contentious debates on immigration are the causes of immigration addressed. What drives these immigrants to abandon their homes and families to seek work in a foreign land? Why doesn’t the U.S. Congress address the root causes of migration?
We met migrant farm workers in the U.S. and then backtracked along the “Immigrant Trail” from Texas, crossing the border into Chihuahua, traveling south to Mexico City, to the nearby state of Tlaxcala, and finally to the mountains of Oaxaca. In Mexico we met with family members whose relatives were in the U.S. We also met people working for human rights and food sovereignty. This tour was led by Dr. Eric Holt-Giménez, Food First’s executive director, who has worked with campesino movements in Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua for more than three decades, and chronicled the farmer-to-farmer movement in the recent Food First book, Campesino a Campesino.
Participants learned how communities in Mexico are mobilizing politically, using migration and cross-border organizing to rebuild their livelihoods through farmer-to-farmer sustainable agriculture and broad-based social movements for food sovereignty. Participants participated in the making of a documentary on migration, El Camino del Migrante. In the words of immigrants and their families, and through the evolving insights of concerned U.S. and Mexican citizens, the stories and testimonies of Caminos come alive with possibilities for resolving the immigration dilemmas facing the U.S. and Mexico.
This documentary will allow the participants to share our experience in citizen diplomacy with millions of North Americans and Mexicans.
The El Camino del Migrante documentry
About the filmmaker:
Juan Carlos Zaldívar completed both his BFA and a Masters Fine Arts at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he has also taught as an adjunct faculty. His work has been screened at many festivals worldwide and has received awards from The Jerome Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, The Lucius and Eva Eastman Fund, Tiger Tail Productions and has been commissioned through initiatives of The National Endowment for the Arts, The Public Broadcasting Service and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, among others.
His student film works received aclaim from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Mr. Zaldivar has served as a Juror for the Sundance Film Festival and for The Miami Int'l Film Festival and has served in several boards of directors for arts organizations. He is a Sundance Film Institute Fellow. He is an experienced media outreach strategist. Zaldivar is the co-founder and programming director of The Florida Room Documentary Film Festival an event solely dedicated to social issue documentaries. His directing credits also include 90 Miles, a feature documentary airing on PBS's award-winning series, "POV"; The Story of the Red Rose(Showtime), Palingenesis and the controversial Soldiers Pay, co-directed with David O. Russell and Tricia Regan, which was aired by the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and is being distributed by Cinema Libre. His art work has been exhibited at Scope Miami, Deluxe Arts Gallery, Marina Kessler Gallery, Dot Fiftyone Gallery and Chelsea Art Space in London, among others.
You can help fund this documentaryEl Camino del Migrante. Make your tax-deductible check out to Food First with the notation Caminos documentary.
For more information call 510-654-4400 ext 234
