Guest guest Posted October 18, 2005 Report Share Posted October 18, 2005 Dear friends and colleagues, I just finished watching an impressive documentary called Farmingville, which I'd obtained from Netflix (an online DVD rental service). I wanted to recommend the film to everyone, in case you haven't already seen it. It's about a New Jersey community of 15,000 which experienced a rapid influx in the late 1990s of about 1,500 Mexican immigrant men. The migrants went there seeking work as day laborers (mostly in construction, nurseries, and landscaping). How the community responded over several years is a very sobering and cautionary tale, quite fairly portrayed, about racism and xenophobia in a "middle America" town. The film also shows the tenacity and resilience of a new immigrant population -- qualities that have doubtless been required of countless other immigrant populations in the past, in our nation and others. Finally, the film shines a bright light on the real challenges and dilemmas at the local/community level that are the products of poorly conceived, covert and hypocritical immigration "policies" at the federal level. This documentary was evidently produced in 2003 for PBS, so you might have seen it on television. I'm trying to obtain a copy to loan around in our local community . If you live/work in The Gorge and would like to borrow it, please let me know. (Apologies for the impersonal group mailing.) Tina Castañares tina.castanares@... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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