New Faces: Bringing a little sanity to conversations about immigration

We may not be holding a rally like Jon Stewart did, but we do hope that our newly revised curriculum New Faces: Latinos in North Carolina will bring more sanity to conversations about culture, identity, immigration and globalization in classrooms and communities across North Carolina. With laws like the one passed this spring in Arizona and politicians running ads saying things like “This is Alabama; we speak English. If you want to live here, learn it,” it’s clear that anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States certainly isn’t diminishing. There is…

New Faces Gets a Face-lift

Thanks to generous support from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, Working Films is revising and expanding New Faces: Latinos in North Carolina, a multi-media curriculum.  This resource for educators models a popular education approach to learning, incorporating independent film clips into lesson plans aimed at 8th-12th grade students, with the goal of combating stereotypes and misinformation about Latinos in North Carolina. The curriculum’s design is also informed by an overarching goal of economic justice for all North Carolinians.  The curriculum was originally released in 2007, and implemented in a broader…

Media That Matters Film Festival – 12 shorts making a difference!

Arts Engine presents Media That Matters: More than a Festival on Wednesday, June 3, 2009 at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. This year’s festival includes a spectacular line up of 12 jury selected short films (each 12 minutes or less) on issues of social and environmental concern. Exiled in America won Working Films’ Changemaker Award, a prize we bestow annually. This moving piece explores immigration issues in the United States related to detention and deportation from the point of view of five siblings struggling to live…

Opportunity Blocked

North Carolina made headlines this week in the national immigration debate. The state’s community colleges will no longer admit undocumented immigrants. At least until federal officials determine whether or not it is legal to do so. This reverses a decision made by the college system last year that permitted the 58 individual campuses across the state to make their own individual enrollment decisions. For those who do not know, Working Films is based on the coast of North Carolina. I remember being inspired and moved by the stand our local…

Civics 101: An Electorate That Thinks Critically

“If there’s one thing that Latinos have in common, it’s a complete lack of commonality.” This line in an NPR commentary by Daniel Hernandez caught my attention as I drove home from work recently. Hernandez, a Mexican American blogger in his 20s, was expressing his indignation at pundits’ stereotypical assumptions about the “Latino Vote” in the democratic primaries of Super Tuesday. As Hernandez spoke, my mind jumped to the photos that illustrate the homepage of Working Films’ multi-media curriculum project New Faces: Latinos in North Carolina – the youthful grin…