MAS 219 - (Gaxiola) Mexican-American Culture: Streaming Video

• Chicano! History of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement (Series) This four part landmark documentary series now a classic for Mexican American history of the U.S., chronicles the struggle for equality and social justice of the Mexican American community in the United States from 1965 to 1975. Produced from Austin Texas by Galan Productions, Inc. It features the Chicano land struggle, Cesar Chavez and the UFW, the Los Angeles High School Walk-outs, and the creation of the political party La Raza Unida. 

• The Latino Americans (PBS Series) 
  The series chronicles Latinos in the United States from the 1500s to the present day. It is a story of people, politics, and culture, intersecting with much that is central to the history of the United States while also going to places where standard U.S. histories do not tend to tread. Latino Americans rely on historical accounts and personal experiences to vividly tell the stories of early settlement, conquest and immigration; of tradition and reinvention; and of anguish and celebration, from the millions of people who come to the U.S. from Mexico, Spain, Puerto Rico, and countries in Central and South America. 

• Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary: The Denial of Education and Health Care to Undocumented Immigrants 
  Directed by a schoolteacher, this film became a lightning bolt in the immigration debate as the Rockefeller Foundation labeled it "One of the most important films on American race relations." Hoover Elementary is located in Pico-Union, known as the 'Ellis Island' of Los Angeles. After the passage of Proposition 187 into law, teacher Laura Angelica Simon feared she would be forced to turn in her undocumented students to the INS. She was equally disturbed by the support the proposition was receiving from teachers, even though it would harm their own students. Armed with borrowed equipment, Simon began chronicling this troubled and divisive chapter at Hoover Elementary. NPR calls the result, "A story that veers unexpectedly and characters transform before our eyes...it's astonishing to watch." Ideal for courses in Education, Public Policy, Chicano Studies, Ethnic Studies, Political Science, Sociology, American Studies, Multicultural Studies, Race Relations, Anthropology and Psychology. 

• La Maestra (The Teacher): Surfing in a Small Mexican Village
  A film about a young Mexican woman who decides to pursue her dreams, and in doing so, changes her community in her own small way. The film profiles a day in the life of Mayra Aguilar, a teacher in a tiny rural fishing village in Baja, Mexico, who becomes the first Mexican woman surfer in her area. The film depicts the beauty and slow pace of life in the village, as well as some of the issues facing the community, while also discussing how Mayra has gone on to inspire both her students and other local women to take up surfing and follow their own path. 

• Precious Knowledge: Fighting for Mexican American Studies in Arizona Schools

​​​​​​​Precious Knowledge (2011) reports from the frontlines of one of the most contentious battles in public education in recent memory, the fight over Mexican American studies programs in Arizona public schools. The film interweaves the stories of several students enrolled in the Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson High School with interviews with teachers, parents, school officials, and the lawmakers who wish to outlaw the classes.

• Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program 
  Shedding light on the current debate over immigration reform and the use of “guest workers” in American agriculture, this historical documentary examines what was known as the Bracero Program—a system put in place from 1942 to 1964 to recruit Mexican farm laborers for temporary work in the United States.  

• Symbols of Resistance: A Tribute to the Martyrs of the Chican@ Movement
  lluminating the untold stories of the Chican@ Movement with a focus on events in Colorado and New Mexico, the film engages student activism, police repression, and issues of identity, land, and community that still resonate in Chican@ struggles today. Through interviews with those who shaped the movement and rare historical footage, the film offers a window into a dynamic moment in history
• The Blending of Culture: Latino Influence on America  

  Recent U.S. Census figures provide dramatic testimony to the growth of the Latino population. This program looks at the "Three Houses of Latino Culture"—Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Mexican-American—and their widespread influence from entertainment to politics to economics. Key issues include how long Hispanics have been in America and how U.S. immigration laws affect their assimilation. Interviews with Latino community leaders—university presidents, professors, artists, doctors, CEOs, bishops, and ministers—bring home the diversity and achievement of this rapidly expanding segment of the American populace

• Nuestra Familia, Our Family (Educators Edition)
  Nobody is safe in Salinas, California, where two Latino gangs, Nuestra Familia and the Mexican Mafia, are at war. Through exclusive interviews with NF members and law enforcement personnel, this program describes Nuestra Familia’s formation by convicts inside the prisons of northern California. 

• Hispanics in the Media
  From news anchors to editors, from actors to filmmakers—Hispanics are making their presence known. Discrimination still exists, however. In this program, Hispanics who have made it describe how they did it, the problems they encountered along the way, and the hurdles that remain.