Oaxacalifornia: The Return

FAIN: TD-256070-17

International Documentary Association (Los Angeles, CA 90010-2207)
Trisha Ziff (Project Director: January 2017 to present)

The development of a script for a 90-minute documentary film that would explore the lives of a family of Mexican immigrants living in Fresno, California.

In 1994 we completed Oaxacalifornia, supported by the California Council of Humanities and IMCINE-Mexico; a documentary about the Mejia family from the Mixteca, Oaxaca, who came undocumented to the U.S. looking for work. We met them after they became citizens visiting the Mixteca with their children for the summer. Our original film explored their worlds; sense of identity, culture, language and their hopes for the future. Oaxacalifornia: The Return; meets the Mejia's 23 years later; drawing on material from the original film, we look at the changes. Today all three children are married, there are seven grandchildren, none of whom have visited Mexico, nor speak Spanish. They live in Fresno, with the exception of the youngest daughter Adriana who left home, completed a university degree and married a U.S. marine. The grandchildren are second generation, Mexican-American but describe themselves as American.