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Two Immigration Documentaries: Gigante Despierte (Giant, Awake) and Fuerza (Forces)

The US Senate agreed to end a week-long stalemate over a comprehensive immigration plan yesterday. The Senate had deadlocked last week, not because of the many obstacles in the bill for legalization, or the attacks on legal residents, but because the bill didn’t go far enough to crack down on immigrants. Now, the Senate has agreed to re-consider the bill, just hours after President Bush endorsed a plan to speed $4.4 billion in funding to border security projects. Meanwhile the Immigration and Customs Enforcement has continued its crackdown on immigrant workers through the use of surprise workplace raids, this time at a Fresh Del Monte Produce processing plant in Portland, Oregon just three days ago. 170 employees were arrested.

On this special fund drive edition of Uprising, we’ll focus on immigration, one of the most polarizing and emotionally charged political issues today.

Gigante Despierta is a collection of short films on the major immigration marches in 2006 that took place in cities across the country. The collection of short films covers Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and many other cities and has been put together by Indymedia on one DVD.

Produced by students at Goshen College, Indiana, Fuerza is a documentary that compares the effects of immigration on two towns from opposite sides of the border: Goshen, Indiana, and Apan, Mexico. Many workers in Goshen have emigrated from Apan to make ends meet, and send money back home to their families. Apan, on the other hand, is a poor rural town whose only source of employment are very low wage plastics factories. Fuerza, which is a completely bilingual documentary, brings to life a crucial microcosm of the immigration debate through the lives of ordinary people, both Mexican and American.

¡Ask a Mexican!
GUEST: Gustavo Arellano, award winning columnist at the OC Weekly and contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times

Was there ever anything you wanted to know about Mexicans, but were too politically correct to ask? For two years now, Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly has fielded numerous questions from readers about Mexicans in his notorious column, “¡Ask a Mexican!” Now newly released in book form, questions posed to “The Mexican,” range from the curious such as, “What’s the song La Bamba about?” to the downright racist, “What part of Illegal don’t Mexicans understand?” Arellano navigates the long list of inquires, which he describes as being like a queue at the check out lane of a Northgate Supermarket, with unrestrained wit, sarcasm, and research. Not everyone is in favor of Gustavo’s approach however. When the alternative OC Weekly first published the column in 2004, it angered left and right wingers alike. In one recent case, an Oregon man was suspended by his supervisors for five days for showing his fellow co-worker the “¡Ask a Mexican!” column. The man’s union refused to back him and his lawyer advised him to drop the case. Regardless of what controversies may follow, questions to “The Mexican,” will surely keep pouring in and Gustavo Arellano will be more than happy to answer them.

Thank you Gifts:

¡Ask a Mexican! – Book – $50
Gigante Despierte (Giant, Awake) – DVD – $50
Fuerza (Forces) – DVD – $50
Best of Uprising – MP3 CD – $35
Uprising T-shirts – $60