William Perez, Associate Professor of Education at Claremont Graduate University will lead a screening and discussion of the film “Harvest of Empire” on Wednesday, February 4 at 7:00 p.m. in Balch Auditorium.
Professor Perez will be joined by Russell M. Jauregui, social justice activist and legal advocate for unempowered laborers, and Martha Gonzalez, Assistant Professor of Chican@/Latin@ Studies at Scripps College, for a panel discussion following the film.
About the Film
Based on the groundbreaking book by award-winning journalist and Democracy Now! Co-host Juan González, Harvest of Empire takes an unflinching look at the role that U.S. economic and military interests played in triggering an unprecedented wave of migration that is transforming our nation’s cultural and economic landscape.
From the wars for territorial expansion that gave the U.S. control of Puerto Rico, Cuba and more than half of Mexico, to the covert operations that imposed oppressive military regimes in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador, Harvest of Empire unveils a moving human story that is largely unknown to the great majority of citizens in the U.S.
As Juan González says at the beginning of the film “They never teach us in school that the huge Latino presence here is a direct result of our own government’s actions in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America over many decades — actions that forced millions from that region to leave their homeland and journey north.”
Harvest of Empire provides a rare and powerful glimpse into the enormous sacrifices and rarely-noted triumphs of our nation’s growing Latino community. The film features present day immigrant stories, rarely seen archival material, as well as interviews with such respected figures as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchú, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Junot DÃaz, Mexican historian Dr. Lorenzo Meyer, journalists MarÃa Hinojosa and Geraldo Rivera, Grammy award-winning singer Luis Enrique, and poet MartÃn Espada.