| TD-256070-17 | Public Programs: Media Projects Development | International Documentary Association | Oaxacalifornia: The Return | 9/1/2017 - 4/30/2018 | $48,153.00 | Trisha | | Ziff | | | | International Documentary Association | Los Angeles | CA | 90010-2207 | USA | 2017 | Cultural Anthropology | Media Projects Development | Public Programs | 48153 | 0 | 48153 | 0 | 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. |
| TR-269614-20 | Public Programs: Media Projects Production | International Documentary Association | Return to Oaxacalifornia | 5/1/2020 - 12/31/2021 | $313,793.00 | Trisha | | Ziff | | | | International Documentary Association | Los Angeles | CA | 90010-2207 | USA | 2020 | Hispanic American Studies | Media Projects Production | Public Programs | 313793 | 0 | 313793 | 0 | Production
of a ninety-minute film that uses the lens of three generations of the same
family to explore ideas of what is lost and gained through immigration and
assimilation.
Return to Oaxacalifornia tells the story of the Mejia family from Oaxaca who emigrated to the U.S. 40 years ago as an economic necessity, fleeing drought and economic hardship. A post-NAFTA tale, a sequel of sorts: our film brings together material shot 25 years ago for the original film, Oaxacalifornia, with material we are currently producing. We meet the family in Fresno, C.A. and discover the changes in their lives. The new generation, seven grandchildren only know life in the U.S. and speak no Spanish. Mexico for them is imagined, or experienced through photographs, traditions, food, rituals. In our first film Leo and Mercedes, now grandparents spoke of retiring to Oaxaca but have spent more of their lives living in the U.S. The continuum of our film provides a unique insight into the process of assimilation, what remains important and what is lost, what changes. Three generations, three ways of seeing. They visit Mexico together as a family, is it how they imagined? Does it reson |