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Lunch Break, Wilson, N.C. – Photo by April Simon
Over the course of 2009 I worked closely with the organization Student Action With Farmworkers (SAF) and their Into The Fields internship program. For 10 weeks during the summer interns work full-time at community-based organizations doing outreach with farmworkers and some students also complete a documentary project based on the life of an individual worker they meet in the course of their summer. At the start of the 2009 internship I helped teach the basics of photography to a group of documentary interns, a mix of college students and sons and daughters of farmworkers. Periodically throughout the summer I checked in on the interns and was impressed with their final projects they created. Following the internship I collaborated with SAF to build a site to publish and display their documentary projects online.
One of the documentary projects, Más Que Nada, was selected to be continued into a multimedia presentation. After a few more weeks of continuing work by the student, April Simon, we were ready to start editing together her audio recordings and photographs into the following short film.
Más Que Nada from SAF on Vimeo.
A view of life for a migrant family living in limbo to work the tobacco fields of North Carolina so they can raise six children up right in the very place where they were born. Told through the words of the matriarch, Isabel, and daughter, Yesenia, this short photo documentary explores the ties that bind a family to a place even at the risk of being torn apart. Film by D.L. Anderson based on the documentary work of April Leanne Simon, Dayana Diaz and Jennifer Gonzalez – 2009 SAF (Student Action With Farmworkers) Into The Fields Interns.
Presenting this film at the N.C. Latino Film Festival in November was a major highlight of the year because the family featured was in attendance that night. For months I had worked with April going over the photographs and audio, learning about this family’s struggles and triumphs, editing and re-editing their story; but it wasn’t until that night that I actually had the pleasure of meeting them. I hope to work with SAF in the future and help in anyway I can to share the stories of just a small portion of the thousands of farmworkers who toil in the fields to bring us the food that we need survive.
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