UCLA Chicano Studies

Emmy-winning documentary by a UCLA student concerning undocumented Mexican workers' struggle on a flower farm in Northern California. The documentary traces the worker's struggle at Año Nuevo flower farm, who were denied proper housing, denied pay, and extorted by the flower farm owner, and their attempt to bring a civil lawsuit against him. Footage includes interviews with dozens of Año Nuevo workers and main organizers, lawyers representing the group, local and state employees, and the owner of Año Nuevo farm. The documentary weaves in a history of Mexican immigration to the U.S., the struggles associated with crossing the border, the economic history of Mexico, and the crisis of transnational production in Mexico, displacing access to food staples. Following the bureaucratic state involvement with Año Nuevo Housing department and wage violations, workers organized from 1977-1979 to bring civil suit against their employer.

Raphael Montañez Ortiz tells a story about an elderly Jewish couple that didn't watch television or listen to the radio. Instead they used to talk lovingly to each other for every day of their long marriage. And in a sense there was a glow around them. When the couple were young their daughter died from polio. And so this energy or glow, in a kabbalistic sense, was their guardian angel, their daughter. Therefore...

UCLA Student Film, Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. "A chronicle of the successful protest efforts of a small Los Angeles community in the Pico-Union district, whose homes were threatened by eviction actions in 1979 to allow the expansion of an auto-supply business"--TV guide, April 27, 1984. Produced in association with the Chicano Studies Department at UCLA.