2008 Woodie Awards
Spirit and Place Festival film tells of challenges facing students of Latin American heritage living in the U.S
Tania Banegas
Issue date: 11/7/07 Section: College News
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The Spirit and Place Festival celebration continued last Saturday with Loz Invencivlez-Our Invincible Youth film presentation and discussion at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
"The majority of children eight years of age and older spend more than six hours a day watching some sort of electronic media," said Felipe Vargas, IU Bloomington professor. "The most powerful way that I have found as an educator working with youth, is to give them a camera and have them go in the natural inquiring process and go ask, and in that process they learn."
That's exactly what students did.
Determined to show their part of the story about illegal immigration, Latino high school and college students presented their film, which consisted of a series of interviews to Latino students and their families.
The event started with an introductory summary of the poverty immigrants from Latin Americans try to escape; their only hope is to look up North to the "American Dream."
The summary also served as a quick reflection about immigrants who came and settled here more than 200 years ago on Native American lands, proving that everyone is an immigrant, some just more recent than others.
Produced by the "We Have a DREAM" committee, an initiative of El Puente Project (elpuenteproject.com), the short film provides distinctive insight into the students' educational goals, language and monetary difficulties, legal restrictions and special assets.
The film presentation also addressed the high Latino student dropout rate in Indianapolis. Most of the issue is rooted in not having legal documents to continue to a higher education; therefore most of these students do not feel the need to continue with school.
"We Have a DREAM" committee strongly supports DREAM Act (Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Under this bill, those who entered the United States five years prior to the passage of the legislature and were under age 16 at the time of entry are eligible for a six-year conditional residency status upon completion of an associates degree or two years of military service.
According to statistics by DREAM Act Portal, approximately 60,000 students would benefit from this legislation; those individuals will go to college or enroll in the armed forces, which would eventually make them active members of society.
At the end of the discussion all that is left to say is how proud these students felt to make their voices heard.
"We worked so hard, hardly slept these last couple of days, but it's great to see such a great outcome because every [row] was full," said Claudia Montes, an IUPUI sophomore who participated in the production of the film.
"Living Generously" is the theme of this year's civic celebration of arts, which runs through Nov. 18.
For more information on Spirit and Place Festival, visit www.spiritandplace.org.
Contact Tania Banegas at tbanegas@iupui.edu.
Click here to go to forum
"The majority of children eight years of age and older spend more than six hours a day watching some sort of electronic media," said Felipe Vargas, IU Bloomington professor. "The most powerful way that I have found as an educator working with youth, is to give them a camera and have them go in the natural inquiring process and go ask, and in that process they learn."
That's exactly what students did.
Determined to show their part of the story about illegal immigration, Latino high school and college students presented their film, which consisted of a series of interviews to Latino students and their families.
The event started with an introductory summary of the poverty immigrants from Latin Americans try to escape; their only hope is to look up North to the "American Dream."
The summary also served as a quick reflection about immigrants who came and settled here more than 200 years ago on Native American lands, proving that everyone is an immigrant, some just more recent than others.
Produced by the "We Have a DREAM" committee, an initiative of El Puente Project (elpuenteproject.com), the short film provides distinctive insight into the students' educational goals, language and monetary difficulties, legal restrictions and special assets.
The film presentation also addressed the high Latino student dropout rate in Indianapolis. Most of the issue is rooted in not having legal documents to continue to a higher education; therefore most of these students do not feel the need to continue with school.
"We Have a DREAM" committee strongly supports DREAM Act (Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Under this bill, those who entered the United States five years prior to the passage of the legislature and were under age 16 at the time of entry are eligible for a six-year conditional residency status upon completion of an associates degree or two years of military service.
According to statistics by DREAM Act Portal, approximately 60,000 students would benefit from this legislation; those individuals will go to college or enroll in the armed forces, which would eventually make them active members of society.
At the end of the discussion all that is left to say is how proud these students felt to make their voices heard.
"We worked so hard, hardly slept these last couple of days, but it's great to see such a great outcome because every [row] was full," said Claudia Montes, an IUPUI sophomore who participated in the production of the film.
"Living Generously" is the theme of this year's civic celebration of arts, which runs through Nov. 18.
For more information on Spirit and Place Festival, visit www.spiritandplace.org.
Contact Tania Banegas at tbanegas@iupui.edu.
Click here to go to forum
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