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Migration and Refugees

THIS IS HOME: A REFUGEE STORY

Directed by Alexandra Shiva

Sundance award-winner puts a human face on the global refugee crisis by providing an intimate portrait of four Syrian refugees arriving in the US and struggling to find their footing.

THIS IS HOME is an intimate portrait of four Syrian refugee families arriving in America and struggling to find their footing. With only eight months of help from the International Rescue Committee to become self-sufficient, they must forge ahead to rebuild their lives in a new home: Baltimore, Maryland. They attend cultural orientation classes and job training sessions where they must "learn America" -- everything from how to take public transportation to negotiating new gender roles.

When the newly imposed travel ban adds further questions and complications, their strength and resilience are put to the test. Through humor and heartbreak, this universal story illuminates what it's like to start over, no matter the obstacles. THIS IS HOME goes beyond the statistics, headlines, and political rhetoric to tell deeply personal stories, putting a human face on the global refugee crisis.

DVD / 2018 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 91 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 / (Grade Level: 7 - 12, College, Adults) / 79 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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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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REFUGE: CARING FOR SURVIVORS OF TORTURE

Directed by Ben Achtenberg

Refugees, asylees and caregivers share their stories to help professionals and volunteers understand the needs of the more than a million survivors of torture rebuilding lives in the US.

It's estimated that more than a million refugees, asylum-seekers and other immigrants to the United States have been victims of politically motivated torture. They come here from all parts of the world -- some legally, some undocumented, some with families and some very much alone. They live in major American cities and in small towns. Some survivors bear visible scars, but many more have been wounded in ways that remain hidden.

Advocates for torture survivors, dedicated healthcare and social service professionals, and hundreds of citizen volunteers have united to create programs throughout the country that provide care and support to survivors who have come here to make new lives.

This documentary highlights five treatment and support programs in Minneapolis, Atlanta, the Boston Area, and Washington, DC. Based on interviews with dozens of survivors and with the professionals and volunteers who are helping them to heal, this film is a tribute to their courage and dedication, and a call to action.

DVD (Closed Captioned) / 2013 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 57 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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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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STORYTELLING CLASS, THE

Directed by John Paskievich and John Whiteway

An after-school storytelling project in a diverse, but divided, city school breaks cultural boundaries and creates community.

Located in Winnipeg's downtown core, Gordon Bell High School is probably the most culturally varied school in the city, with 58 different languages spoken by the student body. Many students are children who have arrived as refugees from various war torn areas of the world.

In an effort to build bridges of friendship and belonging across cultures and histories, teacher Marc Kuly initiated an after-school storytelling project whereby the immigrant students would share stories with their Canadian peers.

The catalyst for this cross-cultural interaction was the students' reading of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, a memoir of Beah's horrific time as a child soldier in Sierra Leone's civil war.

These voluntary after-school meetings take dramatic turns and reach their climax when Ishmael Beah and professional storyteller Laura Simms travel from New York to work with them. With their help the students learn to listen to each other and find the commonality that so long eluded them.

DVD / 2009 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 59 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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DREAMING OF TIBET

Directed by Will Parrinello

Looks at the lives of three Tibetan exiles, and at the recent history of their country which forced them to flee.

In isolated communities around the world, particularly in India, Nepal and the United States, Tibetan exiles have created a 'virtual Tibet,' where they have endured and even flourished in the face of overwhelming adversity. DREAMING OF TIBET follows their arduous journeys from Tibet into exile over a 19,000 foot Himalayan pass. It's a flight that the Dalal Lama took in 1958 and over 150,000 of his followers have taken since then. Most have only minimal clothing and meager provisions to make the life-threatening trek. Many die along the way.

This intimate documentary is about the resilience of the human spirit under the most dire circumstances. The film looks at the lives of three extraordinary Tibetan exiles who have survived in exile and are deeply involved in working for the survival of their culture. They are, in short, Ms. Tseten Phanucharas, a political activist, who is one of the Dalai Lama's press coordinators in Los Angeles; Ms. Tsering Lhamo, a nurse working with recent refugees in Kathmandu, Nepal; and Mr. Ngawang Ugyen, a monk in the Mt. Everest foothills.

DREAMING OF TIBET captures the difficult challenges they each face and conveys the sense of hope they bring to their day-to-day lives in spite of great hardship and loss.

Also features His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and author/climber Jon Krakauer, with appearances by actors Richard Gere and Goldie Hawn.

DVD (Color) / 2006 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 58 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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TREE THAT REMEMBERS, THE

Extraordinary film explores the lives of Iranian refugees who cannot escape painful memories.

In 1992 a young Iranian student hanged himself from a tree on the outskirts of a small Ontario town. He had escaped the Ayatollah's regime but he could not escape his past.

News of the stranger's death hit home with filmmaker Masoud Raouf. He too is part of the generation of Iranians who rose up against the Shah's despotic rule only to be cruelly persecuted by an equally murderous new regime.

THE TREE THAT REMEMBERS is his compassionate reflection on the betrayal of the 1979 Iranian revolution and the tenacity of the human spirit.

Raouf assembles a group of Iranians, all former political prisoners like himself who were active in the democratic movement. Blending their testimony with historical footage and original artwork, Raouf honors the memory of the dead and celebrates the resilience of the living.

While anchored in a specific history, THE TREE THAT REMEMBERS reflects on the broad themes of oppression and survival, pouring light into a somber universe and finding unexpected fragments of hope.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2002 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 50 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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CITY LIFE: WAITING TO GO

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are denied human rights.

This program from the City Life series is set in Lebanon, where (according to the UN) there are three hundred seventy-five thousand Palestinian refugees. Palestinians are unwanted in Israel, but in war-torn, sectarian Lebanon, among fellow Arabs, they hardly fare better, and most live in poverty. Barred from working, they also have limited access to medical care and higher education. Many have been in Lebanon for over fifty years.

A Palestinian doctor working in the PLO-funded Haifa hospital in Burj el Barajneh refugee camp, Beirut, earns US $200 month, and is glad of the work: she's forbidden in any Lebanese hospital. Elsewhere young Palestinians do not value education because they see their parents in menial, part-time jobs regardless of their qualifications. For refugees living in South Lebanon, a degree qualifies a person to pick oranges, at a salary of US $6.30 a day. South Lebanon's refugees are even prohibited from rebuilding their houses.

Those who can get out of Lebanon go to Europe, Canada, USA -- but they never give up hope of returning to their villages in Palestine. Adding insult to injury, a recent law enacted in Lebanon prohibits Palestinians from owning property -- though people from any other recognized state have that right. But Palestinians do not have a state: they are officially stateless.

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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LIFE: THE BOXER

A young male looks to escape Mexican poverty by becoming a boxer in the United States.

Luis is 27, and lives in the remote peasant village of Sierra de Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. Here, families are numerous and the land is scarce and arid. Like most of the local people, Luis' parents are Mixtecos Indians who survive by growing corn and selling jelly at the weekly local market. But Luis has a dream of how he will escape the surrounding poverty and be able to look after his parents in their old age. Inspired by classic movies of Mexican boxing heroes, he's training to become a famous boxing champion in the United States. This film follows him as he travels north to the U.S. border, joining other migrants determined to outwit the US frontier guards and scale the wall to the New World to realize their dreams

DVD (Color) / 2000 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 25 minutes

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