|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
THE NEW AMERICANS SERIES Filmmakers' Synopsis from Kartemquin Educational Films THE NEW AMERICANS television series will be comprised of three nights of programming on PBS in April 2004. Each night will consist of two to three, hour-long episodes. Each of the stories will be interwoven throughout, to obtain both maximum dramatic effect and to foster viewers' insight into the complex and varied experiences of our immigrant and refugee subjects. Episode One Episode Two Episode Three EPISODE ONE In the first two-hour episode, we introduce three of the five stories and the central subjects we will follow during the course of the series. While we hear of each subject's dreams and expectations for coming to America, this episode will dramatically end on the heels and toes of that momentous trip to the U.S. We begin by introducing the Palestinian, Nigerian and Dominican subjects - we get a sense of what their roots are, in the country and culture they have grown up in. We will give viewers a chance to understand their sense of national identity before being confronted with America and the powerfully defining - and sometimes confining - label of "immigrant." The stories we follow in the first episode: In a refugee camp in Benin, West Africa we meet the Nwidor and Lawani families, members of a small tribal minority known as the Ogonis. The Ogoni people had opposed Nigeria's military government and Shell Oil Corporation, which for years had been permitted to drill oil in their homeland, heedless of the environmental damage. In 1990, the Ogonis, led by writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, began protesting and demanding more environmentally sound and economically just policies. Eventually, the military cracked down on the popular movement, executing Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists. The wave of violence that followed forced many Ogonis to flee to refugee camps in neighboring Benin. Israel Nwidor sleeps in a small tent with his wife and two children. "When I get to America, I want to lie on a good bed. I've been lying on this mat for three years. I just want to have a nice sleep," says the ever-optimistic Israel. Trained as a chemical engineer back in Nigeria, he was unable to get a job in the oil industry because of discrimination against the Ogonis. "I will be accepted in America," he says, confidently. "Today, blacks living in the northern part of America are free and not discriminated against." Barine Wiwa-Lawani is the sister of slain Ogoni activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa. Her educated background and Wiwa name have garnered her and her children one of the precious few sleeping quarters inside a simple cinderblock building. Educated in England, she ran a thriving catering school and two restaurants in Nigeria before they were bulldozed by the government forcing her to flee. Shortly after arriving in the refugee camp, she learned that her husband had died of cancer in England, where he had been staying to get medical treatment. Now stuck in the camp, neither she nor her children were able to even attend his funeral. We meet the Nwidors and Lawanis in the UNHCR Refugee Camp they fled to years before, and follow them through their first few months in Chicago in this episode. Dominicans Ricardo Rodríguez and José García are highly prized baseball prospects in the Los Angeles organization. We follow them from the Dodger camp in Santa Domingo through spring training and farm teams across the United States. In Episode one, we get a sense of who these two are - Ricardo is a shy country boy with the discipline necessary to make it; while José - steeped with natural talent, and charisma, juggles his baseball career along with five girlfriends. Ricardo, we find out, is on his way to America. We follow him home as he tells his parents the good news. He is one of the few prospects in the camp that has been selected to play in the Dodgers prestigious Phoenix Instructional League. This is another step towards making his ultimate dream come true. "Everything depends on dedication and luck. Most of all luck," he says quietly. We follow Ricardo to the Phoenix Instructional League, where he trains with legendary great Tommy LaSorda, who 'likes what he sees' in Ricardo. Months later, José makes it to spring training in Florida. We watch Ricardo, José and friend Fernando get closer to their dream. They train extremely hard, and spend their limited free time hanging out at the mall, oogling at teenage girls, and learning important phrases in English - such as "I would like to see you again." For all their brilliant talent, we are reminded that they are still teenage boys. At the end of the episode, Fernando is released from the Dodgers and returns to the Dominican Republic. José and Ricardo's positions are secure for the moment, but know they must perform in order to endure the many cuts that will always follow. Naima is a young Palestinian woman who falls in love and marries Hatem, a first-generation Palestinian-American, after a three-week courtship. With one brother dead and another imprisoned because of the Intifada, Naima was determined to leave the West Bank because she believes she can't fulfill her aspirations there. We follow Hatem and Naima as they continue to get to know each other on Hatem's visit. They fill out all the necessary paperwork to obtain a visa for Naima, though Hatem keeps his annual salary a secret. "You won't marry me if you know" he jokingly jabs at Naima. Together, they collect two years worth of rent owed from a tenant in a home owned by Hatem's parents. The tenant explains the deeper tragedies of living in this "occupied suburb." She shows them a set of keys to her family's home inside Israel that she still keeps. "In '48 they took our home and in '67 they destroyed our family." The woman's plight brings tears to Hatem's eyes. Naima, living amidst such stories, listens without visible emotion. Naima's experiences of growing up in an occupied territory have had a profound effect on her and what she wants in life. "If a young man from El Jeeb would ask to marry me," says Naima, "I would refuse, because what I want in life, I don't see it here." Hatem, born and raised in Chicago, does not share Naima's fatalist views of her homeland. He is, in fact, totally enamored with Palestine and even talks of someday living here with Naima. "I know Hatem loves Palestine and would love to live here. But I must go to the states for my future and to grow as a person." For all of Naima's self-assurance about her future in America, upon her departure she is in tears as the finality of it all sinks in: Once she boards the plane, she will not be able to return home for many years. While she stuffs her suitcases, her brother, Jihad, tells us, "She'll have a home and a family that loves her. There are no complications there. There are no checkpoints. People are free. Of course she'll be happy." Minutes later, Naima collapses in Jihad's arms, crying uncontrollably. "Don't cry, Naima, don't cry," pleads her mother, trying to stiffen her own resolve as much as her daughter's. EPISODE TWO This two-hour episode will show how our subjects struggle in differing ways and degrees to leave their countries and then grapple with the initial culture shock of being in the United States. We follow Naima to the U.S., and see her initial ups and downs with the language, work, and in her new role as wife. The Ogonis continue to work hard in underpaid, underemployed positions and Barine returns home for her brothers ceremonial funeral. In the second hour of this episode we are introduced to Pedro Flores, a Mexican meatpacker living in Liberal, Kansas, as he returns home seasonally to see his large, gregarious family on their ranch outside of Guanajuato . We also continue to follow the Dominican players to summer league in Great Falls, Montana; and then follow their Montanan house parents to visit them in the Dominican Republic. Ogoni story. Barine is unable to escape the same working plight as Israel and Ngozi. We see her working in the kitchen of a large downtown hotel as an assistant chef. Her duties consist mostly of peeling potatoes and chopping up fruits and vegetables. "I'm doing work I would have done 20 years ago. But what can I do, I must feed my family." With two teenage girls and a 20-year-old son sleeping on bunk beds in the living room, Barine has learned her "lesson" about how to get and stay employed. "If you let the management find out that you know too much, you'll be out." The sudden death in 1999 of General Sani Abache paved the way for a fledging democracy in Nigeria, led by longtime politician Osalungen Obasango. This change allows the Wiwa family to gain permission from the regime to return to Nigeria and hold a proper ceremonial burial for Ken Saro-Wiwa. In May of 2000, Barine returns to her homeland for this extraordinary event that is barely reported in the media. What was intended to be a private burial becomes an emotionally charged celebration by thousands of Ogonis who flood the small village of Bane, coming from all over the country and world. We also capture Barine as she reconnects with family and friends she has not seen for five years and oversees the cooking of the elaborate feast on the night before the burial. Despite seeing a more relaxed and gregarious side of her for the first time, Barine assures us that she has no desire to stay. "Even if it was safe, I could not come back and just live in Nigeria, but I can't just live in America either. I now live between two cultures." Israel and Ngozi could not afford to make the trip home, but we meet and interview their families and capture an extraordinary scene in which the couple speaks to their loved ones on a video tape we bring with us. It is here that we learn Ngozi is pregnant. Ricardo and José's grasp of English is about to be put to the greatest challenge yet. They arrive in Great Falls, Montana, a small white working-class community that is home to the Dodgers single-A minor league team. We meet Ole and Marie Steinmac, the 'house parents' they stay with in Great Falls. The first encounter between the Dominicans and their house-parents is friendly, but awkward. Ricardo and José's English is crude at best, while Ole and Marie speak barely a word of Spanish. Other than the trainer for the club, there is hardly a resident of this small town that speaks anything but standard-American English. Yet despite these differences, the Steinmacs and the rest of their community seem to embrace the Latin players with open arms. Quickly, Ricardo and José become choir members at Ole and Marie's church, singing Latin hymns in the choir. On the field, Ricardo as expected, performs very well for the team. A starting pitcher, he quickly ascends to the status of "team ace." José is not so fortunate. He has apparently hurt his arm in his efforts to comply with the Dodger's wishes that he become a pitcher. Right now, he is relegated to rehab and working out with a trainer. José is unaware of just how potentially serious his injury is. Off the field, things take a turn for the worse for the Dominican players on the team. One of José and Ricardo's teammates, a Dominican named Ramon, is arrested and charged with sexual assault by a local 25-year-old woman. Neither the house parent nor José, Ramon's close friend, believes Ramon is guilty. Nonetheless, a measure of hysteria descends over the community. While many want to believe Ramon is innocent, others do not know what to think. José and Ricardo worry that the incident will change the way locals look at them, too. "My first reaction," says Ricardo, "was to want to go back home." Naima arrives in Chicago with Hatem and her Mom at her side. They are greeted by scores of cousins who have been anticipating their arrival for months. Naima's older sister, Sanaa, and her children live down the block from Hatem's familiy. Whatever Naima may need - a ride to the store or a job connection - it seems like a relative is always there to offer help. Naima's new life in Chicago is designed to make her feel like she is still on the West Bank. After a henna party, the wedding (with 600 guests) and the honeymoon in Cancun, Naima and Hatem begin their lives together, very much in love. Naima goes on her first real job interview, and quickly it becomes painfully clear that despite her outward confidence, her grasp of English is so weak that she is not really answering the questions. She ends up taking a much more comfortable job teaching Arabic at a Muslim grammar school where she must wear a veil - something she avoided even on the West Bank. A year after arrival, Naima is nicely situated in her new job, and it is time for her mother to return to the West Bank. Hatem's ten-year-old nephew, Mujahid, is going back with Naima's mother (Um Majahid) to spend the summer in El Jeeb. Since Um Majahid does not speak English, they give her a handwritten note to show authorities if need be. It explains in English where she is going and what her flight numbers and times are. Hatem tells his ten-year-old Palestinian-American nephew, "When they ask grandmother, 'Have your bags been in your possession at all times?' you answer 'yes.' Because you're Middle-Eastern they think you might be a terrorist" His nephew nods. "Okay. ...but I thought Iraqis were the terrorists." Hatem frowns and launches into a lecture on stereotyping. Pedro Flores has been in Kansas for thirteen years, separated from his wife, Ventura, and their six children by poverty, necessity and immigration law. Pedro is also a meatpacker, working at the IBP plant in Garden City, Kansas. He immigrated from Guanajuato, Mexico, after first working at various jobs in Florida and Georgia. Here in the small town on the Kansas plains, Pedro lives frugally in a boarding house with other meatpackers trying to save up enough money to finally bring his family from Mexico. The Flores's six children - five girls and one boy - live with Ventura on an impoverished ranch thousands of miles and a hostile border away from Garden City. We follow Pedro as he returns to Mexico in hopes of bringing his entire family back with him. We are there as he sees his family for the first time in many months in the single room they all live in on the ranch. They pack their belongings and take a bus to Juárez, where they begin a nightmarish process of trying to legally emigrate to America. Pedro finds out that between he and a "sponsor's" income, the INS will not allow him to bring his whole family over. The couple desperately makes phone calls to friends and relatives trying, to no avail, to find additional sponsors. The scene ends with Pedrito, their youngest and only song, pleading with him parents through tears not to leave him. EPISODE THREE Note: This episode will be 3 hours long. There will be a turnkey break at the end of the first hour, and the final two hours will culminate the stories into one final conclusion. The final episode of THE NEW AMERICANS incorporates the story of Anjan - an Indian computer programmer, and wraps up all other stories in the series. We begin the episode in Bangalore, India: The streets are filled with people, cars and bikes zooming this way and that. Side by side, we see India's third-world poverty next to what many hopes will be its first-world future. Inside a western-style "cyber cafe" we meet Anjan Bacchu, a computer programmer hunched over a computer. Anjan has a lucrative job working for Motorola. Presently, he is planning to apply for a position that will take him to the U.S. But first, the practically-minded Anjan wants to find and marry a traditional Indian woman before he emigrates. In a modern twist on the Indian tradition of arranged marriages, Anjan has met Harshini Radhakrishnan, a young computer instructor from Mysore, through a computer marriage bureau. Anjan's father, a devout Gandhian, does not oppose his son's plans to go to America. But he believes India is suffering from an American "brain drain" which is luring away his country's best and brightest young people. And like Anjan, he worries that Anjan will be "corrupted" by America's secular materialism. Anjan promises his father that he will return from America in "100 weeks" to resume his career in India with greater qualifications and prospects for success. After a year of marriage, Anjan sets off to the Silicon Valley, first alone and Harshini will soon follow. We see Anjan at work for 2Wire, perched in front of his glowing computer screen for 16-18 hour days; the promise and glory of working in America is less than expected. With Anjan at work so much, Harshini fills her days with television, working out, and shopping with other Indian wives, and is growing more and more depressed. When Anjan married Harshini, he was counting on her to be his Indian bedrock here in America. She was going to keep him centered in the simplicity of Gandhian principles and lifestyle. Now he finds himself worrying more about the impact America is having on her than him. We continue to follow Anjan and Harshini to see how they fare in their marriage, through a handful of layoffs, and the arrival of their first child. At the end of the film, Harshini heads back to India with daughter Amita, while Anjan stays on to search for yet another job. He's overstayed the "100 week" commitment he gave to his father by 35 weeks. The Flores Family: The Flores Family stays in Juarez for a week, calling cousins and friends of cousins to secure the sponsorship needed to obtain visas for the entire family. In the end, they are able to secure visas. They pack up the house and arrive in Kansas. They are excited by the house, the supermarket and all the opportunities they've been waiting for. Their arrival comes just weeks before the 09/11/01 terrorist attacks. With an already slowing economy, Ventura and her older children have been unable to find work in Kansas. One saving grace is that all the older children who would have gone straight to work have been attending high school. They have acclimated nicely considering the cultural and language barriers up against them. Because the immigrant population has grown in Kansas in conjunction with the social services available, the climate new immigrants encounter is considerably more friendly and supportive than what is experienced in border towns and states. After months of attempting to find work in Kansas, and with much reservation, the entire family make a pilgrimage to California's Mecca - to see if they can find migrant jobs in the area and live with Ventura's sister and family. Ventura misses home too much, and though most of the family is happy in Kansas, the decision is made for Ventura to move to California. Pedro gives notice at his work, forfeits benefits for himself and his family, takes his children out of school after their midterms, and they make their way to Mecca. We see how the family fares in immigrant-unfriendly territory, arriving with no guarantee of finding jobs or safety. Their story ends with the older kids and parents working in the fields as migrant workers, with their spoken aspirations and futures looking harder to achieve. Ricardo Rodríguez is being seriously groomed for ascent to the Major Leagues. If he makes it as quickly as the Dodgers hope, he will be a 20-year-old rookie pitcher. José's future, on the other hand, remains uncertain and he spends his second summer in Great Falls. This summer, he has more luck with the ladies than baseball. José gets serious with a young woman who is Mormon, and when he converts, he hears about it from his disappointed house parents, Ole and Marie. By the end of series, Ricardo has been traded to the Cleveland Indians and has made his way to the Majors. For José, it's his third season with a farm team, this summer with the Georgia Waves. Though his future with the Dodgers becomes more of a question, his time in America lengthens. By the end of his third season he gets married to an American woman in Georgia. Ogoni story: Shortly after Ken Saro-Wiwa's ceremonial funeral in Nigeria, NGOZI gives birth to a baby boy in Chicago. ISRAEL names him KARM, after the strongest tree in Africa. The great joy they feel is cut short when two weeks after the baby's birth, Israel finds out his older brother Brendan has been killed in a car accident back in Nigeria. Brendan, whom we met and interviewed in Nigeria, was the rock of the family back home and something of a father figure to Israel. He takes the loss hard and for months afterwards, it seems that the normally resilient Israel has begun to lose his optimism. BARINE continues to struggle with her twin daughters over boys and college plans, but we will be there, when she watches them proudly graduate from high school. Soon after, with the help of her older children, Barine buys a home on Chicago's Southside. With her youngest off to university, we end with Barine making sense of her new world, and finally enjoying some success. Palestinian story: In this episode, we see the painful plight of Naima's homeland extending to America and throughout the world when violence erupts between Israelis and Palestinians. Naima's husband, Hatem, becomes increasingly political, helping to organize large-scale demonstrations in downtown Chicago. His belief that demonstrations and speaking out can make a difference clashes with her feelings of hopelessness about her homeland; and the comfort she takes in prayer and her religious convictions is at odds with his secular political beliefs. Since her arrival, she has struggled with the demands of a new husband and career, as well as the distance from her family back home whose lives have been profoundly affected by violent upheaval. During and after the terrorist attacks of 9.11.01, we witness the impact first hand on how the growing anti-Arab sentiment effects the members of the Abudayyeh family, and the Arab-American Action Network, the non-profit organization where Hatem works. By the end of the film, the center has been torched, Hatem is working around the clock to do what he can, and Naima is feeling unsure about how she feels about her new country. Epilogue. At the end of the series, a short montage will include an epilogue on where our subjects are today... |
|
|
 |
|