Maria's Story http://www.mariasstory.org/

Salvadoran Film:

Maria’s Story: A Documentary Story of Love and Survival in El Salvador’s Civil War

(DVD available in English and Spanish)

Over thirty years ago, El Salvador was in the midst of a brutal civil war. On one side, were peasants and workers affiliated with the Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional (Farabundo Marti Liberation Front -FMLN). On the other side was the right-wing government funded by the United States.

Maria’s Story is one woman who takes up arms against the government. This is a documentary of her life.

An Old Woman Passes a Corn Field in the Mixteca Alta Region of Oaxaca

Emigration from Oaxaca

Oaxaca is a beautiful state in southern Mexico with a rich indigenous culture, creative artists and writers, a beautiful setting, and with nearly half of its population gone.

http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/blog/1569/letter_from_oaxaca/

Film Review: The Other Side of Immigration

The Other Side of Immigration

2009 NR 55 minutes

Contemporary immigration issues between the United States and Mexico receive careful study in this documentary, which uses extensive interviews to outline the experiences and perspectives of ordinary citizens in the Mexican countryside. In examining the economic factors prompting Mexicans to seek work in the United States and the social pressures that result, the film presents an affecting look at a complex political and moral issue.

Director: Roy Germano

Film Review: Todo el Poder

by Fernando Sarinana in Spanish with English subtitles.

       

Apparently inspired by Sarinana’s own experiences in Mexico City, this film tells the story of a filmmaker, Gabriel, who continues to be mugged. In this case, however, the police are no help, because the police are the “bad guys.” One of the bad guys is police chief, Elvis Quijano, a man obsessed with Elvis Presley,  women, drugs, and power. 

Article Review: Sola, Jose, “The Origins and Formation of the Latino Community in Northeast Ohio, 1900 to 2009

Cleveland Latino Fest - Tracy Boulian l Plain Dealer file photo

Mexicans have, in the past two decades, emigrated to other parts of the U.S., other than the traditional areas of California and Texas. They are increasingly emigrating to the Midwest. There has, however, been a long history of Mexicans in Ohio. Sola’s article is a good overview of the history of Latinos in Ohio, as well as an overview of immigration from Mexico in general.

During the Depression, when jobs were tight, immigrants from Mexico, and even American citizens of Mexican origin, were “returned” to Mexico. U.S. citizens were denied their rights and families were broken up.

Book Review: The Circuit

 In his autobiographical work, “The Circuit,” Francisco Jiménez exemplifies the qualities that many immigrants must have: being hard working and not giving up. Jiménez had much to overcome in order to obtain an education.

Book Review: The Garbage King

The Garbage King 
by Elizabeth Laird
 336pp, Macmillan

Set in modern-day Ethiopia, The Garbage King contrasts the lives of two boys: one poor, orphaned Mamo, the other wealthy, but misunderstood Dani, who both grow up in Addis Ababa. Mamo is tricked and sold into slavery and by his wits and determination manages to get back to Addis, where he lives with a gang of street children. Dani, too, finds himself living on the streets.

The lives of the two boys become intertwined. This book is a good introduction to the lives of children in Ethiopia after years of civil war. It also exposes the very-real facts of abuses against children and of child labor in Ethiopia.

This book is recommended for students of high intermediate ESL and above.

*(For the year 2000, the International Labour Organization stated that there would be 3,375,000 economically active children, 1,632,000 girls and 1,743,000 boys between the ages of 10-14, representing 41.10% of this age group. (ILO, International Labour Office - Bureau of Statistics, Economically Active Population 1950-2010, STAT Working Paper, ILO 1997)

el andalón - a documentary film

This short documentary (30 minutes) is uplifting and inspiring. Don Sergio Castro has dedicated his life to helping poor indigenous people of the southern state of Chiapas in Mexico. Six and a half days a week, he holds free clinics for people, many of whom are burn victims. The people he helps are too poor to afford doctors.

Iranian Film: “10” by Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami is one of Iran’s top directors and has won a number of awards, including the prestigious Palme d’Or. “10” was also nominated for a Palme d’Or.

“10” is an unusual film, but a moving one. There are ten short episodes, all of which occur in a car driven around Tehran by a woman. Each episode depicts (but not heavy-handedly) a different social problem in Iran, most of which deal with women.

Film Review: Sentenced Home

As a result of stricter post-Sept. 11 antiterrorism laws, three Cambodian-American immigrants living in Seattle face deportation for felony crimes they committed -- and served time for -- as teens, many years earlier. Following their subjects over the course of three years, filmmakers David Grabias and Nicole Newnham put a human face on troubling aspects of immigration in America in this documentary, which screened on PBS's "Independent Lens" series.

Persian Girls: A Memoir

If you only have time to read one book about women in Iran, or modern Iran in general, this is it.

“Persian Girls” is a memoir of Nahid Rachlin's childhood in Iran in the 1950’s and 1960’s, a period of great change. It is the story of Nahid’s  relationships with the important women in her life: her aunt, her mother, her sisters, her grandmother; and the men: her father and her brothers.

Book Review, Cambodia: Dragon Chica

Dragon Chica by May-Lee Chai

A family survives the horror of the killing fields of Pol Pot in Cambodia in the 1970's,  or at least part of a family survives and, finally, in the 1980’s, reaches the United States. The widowed mother and her five children move from place to place, having financial difficulties wherever they go, and facing cultural misunderstandings  from those who know nothing of Cambodia or Cambodians.

DVD Review: Bordertown

Bordertown (2006, Director Gregory Nava, starring Jennifer Lopez, Antonio Banderas, Maya Zapata, and Martin Sheen)

“A lot of people don’t want people to know about this,” says Gregory Nava, the director of “Bordertown.” “This” is the rape and murder of hundreds of women (some say thousands) in the border factory towns of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico. Amnesty International and other human rights organizations are very concerned about what has been called “femicide,” the killing of women.

The film was inspired by the real life hero, Barbara Martinez Jitner, who posed as a maquila worker in order to make her film, “La Frontera.”

What in the world is happening in Mexico today? Pietro Ameglio helps explain via youtube.

Many of us who love Mexico have been extremely concerned by the news, which is full of daily accounts of violence against immigrants, disappeared women, mass murders, kidnappings, and extortion.
Two excellent short clips on youtube, by Santa Cruz-based Veremos Productions, address the crucial issue of what is happening in Mexico today
The two clips are:

and

Film Review: Black Gold: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

2006 NR 78 minutes

Directors: Nick Francis, Marc Francis

Ethiopia is the home of coffee. In fact, a legend is that a goatherd saw some goats that were so excited they seemed to be dancing. They had been eating the cherries from the coffee bush. The goatherd picked the cherries and took them home to his wife, who told the goatherd to take them to the monks. The monks, thinking that there was something evil about them, tossed the coffee cherries into the fire. When the aroma filled the monastery, the monks crushed the roasted beans and brewed the drink we now know as coffee.

Coffee holds an important place in the culture of Ethiopia, where a coffee ceremony is a central part of Ethiopian hospitality. Now over twelve million Ethiopians are involved in the production and distribution of coffee. Coffee accounts for over two thirds of the country’s earnings.

Enroute to Chile

Graffiti In Argentina

Journey from the Fall Review

Journey from the Fall-

This film was recommended by my Vietnamese students. If you do not know about the reason why we have so many Vietnamese students, this is the best film to watch.

Directed by a Vietnamese-American director and with a predominantly Vietnamese-American cast, this film tells the true stories of Vietnamese refugees who fled their country after the 1975 fall of the South Vietnamese government, those who were forced to stay behind, and those who were sent to “re-education” camps. Further, it tells the story of what happened to a typical family of boat people, and what the family’s experiences were when they arrived in California.

Book Review: Barrio Boy

Barrio Boy by Ernesto Galarza, University of Notre Dame Press, South Bend, Indiana, 1971

This book sat on my bookshelf for years before I finally took it down to read it for this project.

I wish I had read it years before. While, in some ways, it is outside the timeline of this project (Post World War II), in other ways, it is a perfect book for an ESL audience.