By Rebecca Shine who produced the film “Papers” with El Grupo Juvenil, the “Papers” Youth Crew
Imagine you did not have the right to live in the country where you grew up. Imagine you couldn’t work or drive. Imagine you couldn’t apply for a state ID to rent an apartment, get heat in your home or get on an airplane to see loved ones or the world. Imagine you could be deported to a country you don’t remember where they speak a language you don’t know. These are the realities that more than two million undocumented, immigrant youth face right now in the U.S.
For Jews, these obstacles are familiar and these circumstances easy to imagine. That is part of the reason that, as a Jew, I decided to work with a group of immigrant youth and allies to produce the film, “Papers.” The film highlights the stories of five undocumented youth and the challenges they face as they turn 18 without legal status.
They are brave youth, born in South Korea, Jamaica, Mexico and Guatemala, who were brought to the U.S. as babies or children, were educated in American schools, hold American values and know only the U.S. as home. Yet they have no path to citizenship under current immigration law and risk arrest, detention and deportation every day. The film puts these stories in the context of U.S. immigration history and looks at how the methods we use to scapegoat groups of people remain the same while the targets change.
When I learned about Citizens4immigrants.com, I realized this may be a useful place to say why I, as a U.S. citizen, produced this film and strive to be an ally to immigrants, back up young immigrant leaders and promote immigration reform.
I grew up in a Jewish culture that reminded me regularly that my purpose in life was to try to make the world a little better than when I came into it (the operative word is try), to struggle for justice and to “remember when we were strangers,” as per the Passover tale. I know that for thousands of years my people lived as a diaspora, in countries throughout the world, under governments and communities that decided whether we would thrive or survive, what trades we could work at, what unions we could join, what neighborhoods we could live in, what education we were allowed, whether we lived.
The words that people used (and still use) to describe Jews are so similar to those used to describe immigrants historically and currently: that we are clannish, dirty, suspicious, greedy, unwilling to assimilate, too stubborn to give up our home languages, that we are like animals.
Being a lesbian also informs my life and work. I have witnessed and studied the amazing role – often invisible – that queer people have played in social justice movements, social services and education (though the term queer has only recently become a positive, inclusive word that LGBT people and allies have begun to use with greater frequency). I watched the scapegoating and targeting of queer people in my own lifetime. I came out twenty years ago (at age 20) during the ugly battles over anti-gay ballot measures in Oregon, prospective amendments to the state Constitution that referred to gays and lesbians as “abnormal and perverse” and likened us to pedophiles and practitioners of beastiality.
About six years ago, I began working with immigrant youth at risk of dropping out of high school in Portland, Oregon. I tutored and mentored a number of undocumented youth. These remarkable young people opened my eyes to the concrete wall that stood in their way at every turn, what the lack of “papers” meant on a daily basis and in the long-run and what we, as a country, were losing every time we blocked their way.
At the time I met them, it was still possible to obtain a driver’s license or state ID in Oregon and so a group of youth asked me to teach the driver’s ed, help them clean up their records, buy cars and insurance. (By the time they had driving permits, had practiced driving and went to take their tests, our governor had signed an executive order to comply with the federal Real ID requirement that applicants must have a social security number to obtain a license or ID. They never got those licenses, cars or insurance).
We held driver’s ed every week in Jose Luis’s garage. In that garage we played pool, ate his mom’s mole and talked. The students asked me and my partner Anne (who was then a building contractor and is now a filmmaker and director of “Papers”) to help them develop a landscaping business. They wanted to know how to make up school credits and graduate on time, how to get glasses, internet access in their homes and so on. They introduced me to their friends and family, hung out in my house, showed me the world from their eyes.
They challenged me when they thought it necessary and accepted me as I was. Most of all we grew to love each other. Maybe it’s corny to say that, but it’s true. Because the truth is when we watch someone we love suffer an injustice, we want to fight it. I found I had to join the immigration rights struggle so the despair wouldn’t be overwhelming. It’s selfish in part no doubt. As a person prone to depression, working hard, struggling for change and keeping good company keeps me from simply despairing.
Meanwhile, I found that my tribes – both Jews and lesbians and gays didn’t seem to relate to these young people and their struggle (or at least not in large numbers) even though to me, these seemed like natural alliances. I went to see my Rabbi and we talked about how often people have to know someone to care about them (and by know I don’t mean hire or pass by, I mean connect with, share friendship or a common effort).
I realized many people may never knowingly meet an undocumented youth and not out of malintent, but because many of us don’t know people different from ourselves. Through conversations with youth, my partner, my colleagues and friends, I confirmed my belief that film is a great way to meet people and come to care about them, people who you may never know. We do that all the time when we watch a movie and laugh or cry, empathize or become outraged. As a team of youth and adults, with papers and without, we decided we wanted to make a film that allowed some undocumented youth to tell their own stories to a national audience and, most importantly, not have their stories told by others.
Our crew included people who were young, middle-aged and old, documented and undocumented, gay and straight, Jewish, Muslim and Christian, of European, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Japanese and African descent. Together we envisioned a film in which a handful of youth could express who they were – not just as defined by their immigration status, but as multi-dimensional people, a film in which the adults and teachers and politicians supplemented the young person’s story and not the other way around.
“Papers” was more than a film project from its inception. The project’s primary goal was to mentor and train diverse youth as community organizers, leaders and filmmakers. Youth were involved in every aspect of production and now in distribution. Four youth producers - four of those youth I spent time with in Jose Luis’s garage - established El Grupo Juvenil, the “Papers” Youth Crew, in 2008 and due to requests from youth around the country to participate, the “Papers” Youth Crew has now grown to include over 500 youth nationally. These youth have participated in numerous ways, including sending stories and letters, organizing fundraisers and hosting screenings.
There are many more stories here, but I’m not the one to tell them. I’d like you to hear more from El Grupo Juvenil (the “Paper” Youth Crew) and I will ask a citizen youth group member to write for this site about why he or she worked so hard to produce and now distribute “Papers.” I’d like you to hear from Anne Galisky, the Director, whose father was born in Mexico of Polish/Ukranian parents, his earliest memory that of crossing the Rio Grande by horse at night at age five and then being ordered deported to Mexico at age 19 during the Red Scare. I will ask others from our crew and our supporters around the country to contribute to this website as well.
“Papers” is about youth telling their own stories and allies backing them up. It is extraordinary to watch undocumented youth increasingly come out of the shadows, tell their stories and demand change. And it is remarkable how many allies have emerged from around the country from the most likely and unlikely places.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Shine
http://www.papersthemovie.com
replica----watches liked this
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