About this Event:
LOCAL DOCUMENTARY ABOUT FARMWORKERS TO BE SCREENED FOR THE FIRST TIME AT ST. JOHN FISHER COLLEGE NOVEMBER 3
A feature-length documentary about immigrant farmworkers in Wayne County, “After I Pick the Fruit,” will be screened publicly for the first time on Thursday, November 3rd at 6 p.m. in room 135, Basil Hall, on the St. John Fisher campus.
After I Pick the Fruit follows five immigrant farmworker women – Lorena, Vierge, Maria, Soledad and Elisa – over a ten-year period as they struggle to raise their families and find a sense of community in a world that is largely invisible to others.
“My goal was to make this invisible world visible, to bring to light the struggles of those workers who put food on our tables,” says filmmaker Nancy Ghertner, a longtime resident of Sodus and former faculty member at RIT. “ The project initially arose out of my own curiosity. Driving to and from my house in Sodus, I’d see women working in the orchards and wonder, ‘What is their life like when the work day is done? Where do they live, and who takes care of their children while they’re at work?’ After I got to know the women, we formed close friendships, and mere curiosity turned into a desire to reveal these women as they really are: three-dimensional human beings who love their families, but left their home countries out of economic desperation. They’re willing to suffer isolation and long, hard hours because they’re determined to provide their children with a better life.”
The Bush administration’s post-9/11 crackdown on illegal immigrants is a central event in the film and leads to great anxiety for three of the women who were in the US without documentation. When two of the women experience the deportation of their husbands, Ghertner was there to capture their emotional responses on film.
The screening at St. John Fisher is free and open to the public. For more information about the screening, contact Yantee Slobert, Director, Office of Multicultural Affairs & Diversity Programs, (585) 385-8423.