Agriculture is consistently ranked as one of the three most dangerous occupations in the United States.
Award Winners
2011 Award Winner Tony Macias
Tony Macias received the 2011 Petrow-Freeman Documentary Award. A SAF Into the Fields intern in 1998, Tony worked for SC Migrant Health in Columbia, SC. After his internship, Tony joined the SAF staff as the Assistant Director for six years before moving to Oaxaca, Mexico to work with Witness for Peace (go here to learn more about WFP's important work).
Retorno 360
Migration has affected the lives of million of Mexicans, both those who leave home and those they leave behind. Its causes include global factors like violence and poverty, whose causes in turn are social inequality and the state's failure to respond to the needs of its citizens. Policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) mean that small farmers are competing with subsidized products from the US, and have driven millions from the Mexican countryside in search of economic survival. According to the brutal logic of free trade, if these people (and their families, communities, and traditions) are unwilling to change, then they have become expendable.
But reality is always richer than our models can demonstrate, more complicated than our policymakers wish it to be. There are as many reasons to migrate as there are people migrating. And for those of us not forced from home, cultivating curiosity about why people uproot themselves could cure us of an unpardonable ignorance. When we ask why people act in a particular way, we make them visible and welcome their complexity. The more we do this, the less expendable they become. For those among us who have been forced into migration, the simple act of telling our stories makes our humanity impossible to ignore.
Retorno 360 tells the story of a Oaxacan migrant, Inocencio Melchor Hernandez, and the family he left behind. As he searched for new experiences and economic opportunity in the U.S. over nearly 20 years, his wife and children made life work back in their small town. Like many trials, the many years they spent apart had positive and negative consequences: grief, loss, and anger coexist with the self-assuredness and pride that come from having overcome many challenges. Now that seven years have gone by since he returned, this is also a story of reconciliation.
Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible without the generosity and trust that Inocencio, Cira, Nestor, and Laura gave me when they let me invade their lives for several months. I am also very grateful to Student Action with Farmworkers and those behind the Petrow-Freeman Documentary Award for giving me the training, support, funding, and inspiration to carry out this project. I want to thank the advisory committee that helped me through this project, including Chris Sims, Derek Anderson, Joanna Welborn, Melinda Wiggins, Bart Evans, Raúl Gámez, Rosalva Soto, Charlie Thompson, and Steven Petrow. Elena Rue, Mikel Barton, Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein, Aylwin Lo, and several others also gave indispensable advice and support during crucial moments in the project. Finally, thank you to the Witness for Peace Mexico Team for your support while I worked away at this extensive project!
Watch Retorno 360 here.
2010 Award Winner Leanne Tory-Murphy
SAF alumni Leanne Tory-Murphy was selected to receive the second annual SAF Petrow-Freeman Documentary Award. A SAF Sowing Seeds for Change fellow in 2008, Leanne worked for the Rural and Migrant Ministry in New York, programming a 5-week Youth Leadership Academy and assisting with an oral history project, the Youth Arts Group, Rural Women's Conference, and Sullivan County Day camp. Leanne is a recent graduate of City University of New York (CUNY) at Hunter College with an interdisciplinary major in Food Systems.
Leanne's project focused on documenting the lives of farmworker women in Sullivan County, NY. Leanne collaborated on the project with “Gabriela,” the woman she documented during her fellowship in 2008, and several other young women from farmworker families. She completed her project in November 2010 and her final piece is a multimedia photo essay that can be used as a resource to educate and inform the community about farmworkers.
Watch Nuestro Camino | Our Journey here.
2009 Award Winner Adriana Sanchez
In May of 2009, Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) chose Adriana Sanchez, daughter of migrant farmworkers and a student at Fresno State, to receive the first annual SAF Petrow-Freeman Documentary Award. A SAF intern in 2007, Adriana worked for Carolina Family Health Center in Wilson, NC, and completed a documentary project on a local farmworker named Angel. Adriana writes about that experience: “I realized how much I had learned from completing the documentary project. I learned not to be afraid to dive into somebody’s life, and to listen to what they have to say… every one of us has something to share with the world.”
“Harvesting Dreams,” the multimedia documentary Adriana produced for this award, focuses on the dreams of higher education and equality for three undocumented students in California. Adriana presented the documentary at the 2009 NC Latin American Film Festival.
Watch Harvesting Dreams | Cosechando sueños here.
