<p>The Harvest/La Cosecha - Promotional Trailer from Shine Global on Vimeo.</p>
THE HARVEST/LA COSEHCA tells the story of the children who feed America. There are an estimated 400,000 children in the US who labor in the fields to feed us. They lack the protections provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act that children working in other industries have.
The film follows 3 of them as they follow the 2009-10 harvest and struggle to help their families survive.>via: http://vimeo.com/16968153
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The Harvest/La Cosecha
The Story of the Children Who Feed America.
Learn More
Listen to Zulema’s story, age 11 Eva Longoria talks about THE HARVEST and Shine Global >> Meet Robin >>
Meet Rory >>
View the Trailer >>
Some Facts On Child Farmworkers >>
THE HARVEST/LA COSECHA is the story of the children who work as many as 12 hours a day, six months a year in the scorching hot sun, without the protection of child labor laws. These children are not toiling in the fields in some far away land. They are working here, in our back yard, in America.
Not since the work of Walker Evans, has the world of these agricultural workers been so vividly and intimately depicted. More than 400,000 migrant child workers in the US journey from their homes traveling from state to state, farm to farm, crop to crop, picking the produce we all eat. Many of these children are American citizens. All are working to help their families survive while sacrificing the birthright of childhood: play; stability; school. The film profiles three of them as they work through the 2009 harvest. Whose families will be “lucky” enough to get work? Which families will be separated? Which will be deported or injured or killed? Will any manage to keep their dreams alive?
Set to premier in the Spring of 2011, THE HARVEST/LA COSECHA follows three children:
Zulema Lopez, 12, thinks of nothing but working in the fields, and one of her earliest childhood memories is of her mother teaching her how to pick and clean strawberries. Having attended 8 schools in the last 8 years, she struggles to keep up and is afraid she may not make it to high school. When asked what her dreams are, she replies that she doesn’t have time for them.
Perla Sanchez, 14, travels with her large family to pick crops across the United States. The only benefit for Perla of continuing to migrate on the harvest with her family is that it will insulate her from the other perils inherent in being a teenage Latina with limited resources. If she stays in Texas, she is unsure if she will be able to resist the lure of gang life. She dreams of becoming a lawyer so that she can help other migrant workers who struggle to make ends meet.
Victor Huapilla is a 16 year-old living in Florida. His family migrated to the US when he was young looking for a better life and is on the path to full citizenship. To help support his family, Victor has had to balance his time between harvesting and going to school and his education suffers. While Victor is often in the fields, he’s glad his younger sisters are still spared the ordeal of picking up to 1500 pounds of tomatoes a day. But the expenses of legally bringing his two older sisters to America bankrupts the family and they can’t afford to migrate for work. Will they be able to keep the family together?
THE HARVEST/LA COSECHA was shot in high definition video. Principal photography began in Minnesota and North Dakota in June 2007, and continued in Northern California, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, and Florida through the 2010 harvest. Post-production began in Fall 2010, with the anticipated completion of the film by March 2011. Shot with cinematic scope, revealing the drama and impact of narrative character-based storytelling and powered by the children’s determination to find hope within their hardship, THE HARVEST boasts unparalleled access to life on these farms across the nation and gives us the opportunity to connect with these children who live these unthinkable lives to feed us, and more importantly to them, to feed their families and themselves.
Facts about the children who feed America
More than 400,000 children work in American fields to harvest the food we all eat
Children working in agriculture endure lives of extreme poverty
- The average farmworker family makes less than $17,500 a year, well below the poverty level for a family of four.
- Poverty among farmworkers is two times that of workers in other occupations
- Farmworkers can be paid hourly, daily, by the piece or receive a salary, but they are always legally exempt from receiving overtime and often from receiving even minimum wage.
- Families often cannot afford childcare and so have no choice but to bring their children out into the fields.
Children who work as farm laborers do not have access to proper education
- Working hours outside of school are unlimited in agriculture.
- On average, children in agriculture work 30 hours a week, often migrating from May – November, making it exceedingly difficult to succeed in school.
- Almost 40% of farm workers migrate and their children suffer the instability of a nomadic lifestyle, potentially working in multiple states in a given season and attending multiple schools each with a different curriculum and standards.
- Migrant children drop out of school at 4 times the national rate.
Children face health hazards and fatalities in the fields
- According to the USDA, agriculture is the most hazardous occupation for child workers in the US
- The risk of fatal injuries for children working in agriculture is 4 times that of other young workers.
- Child farmworkers are especially vulnerable to repetitive-motion injury
- Farmworkers labor in extreme temperatures and die from heat exposure at a rate 20 times that of other US workers and children are significantly more susceptible to heat stress than adults. Heat illness can lead to temporary illness, brain damage, and death.
- Farmworkers are provided with substandard housing and sanitation facilities. As many as 15%-20% of farms lack toilets and drinking water for workers, even though they are required to provide them. Farms with 10 or fewer workers are not required to provide them at all.
- EPA pesticide regulations are set using a 154-pound adult male as a model. They do not take children or pregnant women into consideration.
- Research indicates that child farmworkers have a much higher rate of acute occupational pesticide-related illness than children in other industriesand there is a strong link between pesticide exposure and developmental disabilities. Long-term exposure in adults is associated with chronic health problems such as cancer, neurologic problems, and reproductive problems.
- 64% of farmworkers do not get healthcare because it is “too expensive”
WHAT’S BEING DONE:
For information on the CARE Act and the current legislative work being done on this issue please visit www.theharvestfilm.com
Also follow us on Twitter: @theharvestdoc
And on Facebook: The Harvest/La Cosecha
TO LEARN MORE VISIT THESE SITES…
Information gathered from afop.org, stopchildlabor.org, and Human Rights Watch.
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Disturbing Harvest
focuses on child labor
in America
COURTESY PHOTO
Just another day at the office for Zulema López, 12.
PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 21, 2011
“In some countries, children work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week,” the opening title cards in The Harvest/La Cosecha read. “Children 12 and younger pick crops. The United States of America is one of those countries.”
It is easy to dismiss this documentary produced by non-profit Shine Global and executive-produced by Eva Longoria as a liberal infomercial with political goals (at the end of the movie there is a link and a number you can text to donate to other non-profits that will “help change lives of child migrant workers”). It is more difficult to deny the fact that these children — these American children — are migrant farm workers who live here and spend their lives working like asses for peanuts and are unable to finish school due to the constant moving.
Are the parents or the government to blame? Is capitalism the culprit? The documentary doesn’t address these questions, focusing instead on simply exposing how these kids live and making you think twice before you condemn some Asian country for its child labor laws. You don’t need to look that far; it is happening right here.
The movie is a disturbing eye-opener that offers no solutions. And even if it could have made its point in less than 84 minutes, it is effective in the way that it enters these families’ lives — at times making you feel as if you are right there, living with them. The narrative follows 12-year-old Zulema López, of El Cenizo, 16-year-old Víctor Huapilla, of Quincy, Fla., and 14-year-old Perla Sánchez, of Weslaco, all of whom started picking crops with their families before reaching their teens. They move from town to town, waking at 5 in the morning and working all day in 100-degree heat. López, for example, makes $64 a week; on a slow day, Huapilla carries 1,500 pounds of tomatoes (each 25-pound bucket pays $1). The average farm working family in America makes less than $17,500 a year.
The Harvest is a depressing, no-way-out look at life in America, and it isn’t easy to watch. Perhaps the only somewhat uplifting moment comes during the closing credits, when the filmmakers added biographies of former child laborers who went on to successful professional careers (like NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez, who worked the fields from ages 7 to 16). But go tell that to a kid who has to get up at 5 a.m. to pick vegetables.
“I think I’m helping [mom] with [this],” says López. “But dreams? No, I’m still working on those.” •
>via: http://sacurrent.com/screens/film/disturbing-harvest-focuses-on-child-labor-i...