On PBS ‘Los Trabajadores’ In March 2003.

It’s 1999, and the booming city of Austin, Texas keeps on growing-thanks largely to men like Ramon and Juan. They work some of the hardest jobs in an America that wants their labor as long as they go back to Mexico or Nicaragua when they’re done. Through the two men’s lives and a battle over Austin’s controversial day labor program, LOS TRABAJADORES explores the myriad contradictions that haunt America’s dependence on and discrimination against immigrant labor. LOS TRAJABADORES will air nationally on the PBS series Independent Lens, on March 25, 2003 at 10:30 P.M. (check local listings).

Through the stories of two men, Ramon Castillo Aparacio and Juan Ignacio Gutierrez, and the controversy surrounding the relocation of a day labor site from downtown to a residential neighborhood in Austin, LOS TRABAJADORES examines the misperceptions and contradictions inherent in America’s paradoxical history of both dependence on and abuse of immigrant labor.

Sounds and images of manual labor and construction set the scene of a city developing at the hands of those who have been excluded from the prosperity they help to create. As Juan says, “They say Austin is growing, or this country is growing, but thanks to whom?”

While sociopolitical and economic issues provide a context, the film’s spine and focus are a year in the lives of Ramon and Juan and the day labor site where they wait for work. Through the story of the day labor site moving into a residential neighborhood, we learn about some of the obstacles faced by immigrants-including local residents who are opposed to having day laborers in their neighborhood, and whose misconceptions sometimes lead to discrimination. Through Ramon and Juan, the complexities of immigration and labor issues are given a rarely seen human quality. We learn about the personal sacrifices made by immigrants who come here, both documented and undocumented, each desperate for work so that their families back home will survive. “I came here illegally and this is against the law of the United States,” says Ramon, a Mexican father of two, “but it is not against my law, nor is it against the law of my family. Even if they’re American, they can’t tell me I can’t work to support my family.”

Ramon’s words are made even more powerful by meeting his wife and daughters in Mexico and hearing what it’s like to be the family left behind.

Ramon and his family, along with Juan and other immigrants, help personalize an issue that has been terribly dehumanized in the mainstream media. America relies heavily on the labor of such individuals, but how many Americans know these laborers as people? When local residents visit the day labor site, many of their misconceptions and fears melt in the face of the integrity and dreams of the day workers. LOS TRABAJADORES introduces some of these immigrants to an American audience who might never have taken the time to know them.

Writes Michael King of the Austin Chronicle: “Everyone should see this film, the human underside of our relentless growth. Every filmmaker should see it as a testament to letting the story come to you.”

Screening with short film WHY CYBRACEROS?

In the not so distant future the Mexican/American border has been sealed shut, as U.S. companies turn to Internet technology that allows migrant laborers to work from home. WHY CYBRACEROS? is a 5-minute satire based on (and incorporating footage from) a real 1940s US government film that promoted the “Braceros” labor program and remade with a whimsical, creative twist by experimental filmmaker Alex Rivera.

For more information at http://www.pbs.org/theworkers or http://www.pbs.org/lostrabajadores (spanish version)