Listen 8:00- 10:00 pm (PST) to the WeThePeopleRadioNetwork.com and to our guests- Almudena Carracedo, Robert Bahar and Jo Ann Lo.
Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar produced the award winning documentary film Made in L.A.. Jo Ann Lo was in the film and the lead organizer in the long campaign against "Forever 21."
"Made in L.A. follows the remarkable story of three Latina immigrants working in Los Angeles garment sweatshops as they embark on a three-year odyssey to win basic labor protections from a mega-trendy clothing retailer. In intimate verite style, Made in L.A. reveals the impact of the struggle on each woman’s life as they are gradually transformed by the experience. Compelling, humorous, deeply human, Made in L.A. is a story about immigration, the power of unity, and the courage it takes to find your voice."
Made in L.A. has been shown on PBS and has received recognition nationally and internationally. It is a powerful tool to raise awareness and encourage people to stand up for themselves and their rights.
I received an email about a showing at Stanford University, a short bicycle ride from my home, where Almudena and Robert spoke and showed clips of their film. Later I returned for the screening, followed by a panel discussion. I was very impressed with the film, but also by the story behind the film -- Almudena and Robert's journey, adventure, and transformation as the project and the women's struggle grew organically and their personal lives took unexpected twists and turns.
The film may be complete, but the story never really ends. The most personal is often the most universal, and what the characters in the film and Almudena and Robert experienced in their project is deeply personal and very political. In the struggle for justice, people must always choose between their personal lives and the collective efforts in many struggles, on many levels.
There are multiple love stories behind this film. Almudena and Robert met, fell in love, and gave birth to this film. Within the stories of the three women is the story of a mother who left her children in order to support them and her family. One of the most heart-rending parts of the film is the mother’s concerns for her children, who seek to visit her but do not make it to L.A. The first question I asked after I saw the film was whether the mom ever was able to reunite with her children. In responding to this question, Almudena told us about a very teary, moved audience that witnessed the world premiere of the film in Washington, DC -- which also brought together the mother with her eldest son for the first time in over a decade. The film is a story of love and solidarity between workers and their families and between workers and other workers, across time, for the struggle of immigrants in sweatshops is not a new one, and continues to this day in countries throughout the world.
Jo Ann Lo is now a Co-Director of Enlace, a membership organization comprised of worker centers, unions and organizing groups in the U.S. and in Mexico engaged in base-building through organizing campaigns for economic and social justice. They seek to build the base of low wage workers to bring balance to the struggle between the rich and working poor.
Here is a statement from Almudena posted at the Made in L.A. website:
Sometimes, when you start a project, you can't imagine the journey that awaits you.
When I started this film, more than five years ago, my goal was only to create a short documentary that portrayed the conditions of Latina immigrants at Los Angeles factories. But, in the five years the film took to complete, it slowly, unexpectedly, became an intimate portrait of an increasingly universal experience in today's globalized society: the struggle of recent immigrants to get a foothold, to learn their rights and to assert their voice in our society.
The project started when I read a newspaper story about sweatshops in Los Angeles. It talked about the deplorable conditions faced by immigrants working in some downtown garment factories: long hours, sub-minimum wage pay (or no pay), unsafe or unsanitary conditions, rats, roaches. I had hears of such conditions in other parts of the world, but I was shocked that they were also happening in one of the richest countries on Earth. I had already made a short documentary and so I set out to make a little film that would expose these issues and that would take about five months to complete. Or so I thought.
I approached Los Angeles’ Garment Worker Center, then newly opened, and started spending time there, sometimes filming, often just talking with workers. They were about to launch a campaign against a clothing retailer: a boycott and a lawsuit that would attempt to hold a retailer – Forever 21, which sells trendy clothes at cheap prices – accountable for the conditions where their clothes are made. The energy of those early days was electrifying and I filmed everything that I could. As I started to get to know the workers, I was struck by their need to tell their personal stories. Stories of why they came to this country, of why they were doing garment work, of their hopes and fears for their children. They were surprised, and proud, that I wanted to listen.
A very raw and rare intimacy came out in these moments and is captured in my early footage. Speaking in Spanish, my native language, being a woman, and working almost completely alone gradually inspired trust and allowed me to enter their lives. In order to portray this, I shot the film in an unobtrusive, intimate verité style. I also desired to capture the lyrical beauty and the details of this colorful, diverse Los Angeles that few outsiders experience.
The five months that I had planned to devote to the project passed quickly and yet I felt that I might only be at the beginning. As the film began to grow, I sought out collaborators and met my producing partner, Robert Bahar. Through our invaluable collaboration, we began to reshape the film from a little documentary on sweatshops to a feature story focusing on the lives of three of the amazing women I encountered at the center: María Pineda, Maura Colorado and Guadalupe “Lupe” Hernandez. I filmed them at home, at the noisy protests with their children, at meetings at the Garment Worker Center, virtually everywhere they’d allow me to follow them. I was so dedicated that Lupe used to tease me: Little camera, one day you’ll leave me alone!
Early in the filming, the Garment Worker Center launched a national tour to draw attention to their boycott campaign and lawsuit. I followed Lupe to New York, and it was the first time either of us had experienced the Big Apple. While there, Lupe visited the Lower East Side Tenement, which preserves the cramped home-based factories of early 20th century immigrant garment workers, and the Museum of Immigration at Ellis Island, through which millions of immigrants, for centuries, came to the United States. Those two visits are captured in the film and were deeply moving for both of us. Lupe saw pictures of the immigrants who came to New York in the early 20th Century. She saw how they lived, how hard they worked, and how they struggled to assert their rights. It’s just like today! was her immediate, gut reaction. That moment was an epiphany. She and I suddenly understood that the experience of Latino immigrants today resembles, in so many ways, the experiences of generations of immigrants who have come before them, from so many other places, in other times and through other ports of entry. The same struggle, the same hopes and dreams for a better life, for themselves and their children.
If Made in L.A. were to accomplish anything, I would hope that it would provide a deeply human window into this immigrants’ struggle, which is repeated around the world regardless of the country of origin or destiny. Wouldn’t you leave your children, no matter the danger, no matter the pain, in order to send back enough money to feed them, hoping to give them a better life? Wouldn’t you work day and night, no matter the physical and emotional drain, if you had four children to raise and you had no other options? And, wouldn’t you overcome your fears and stand up one day to demand your rights in the workplace if you were constantly humiliated, underpaid, even spat at? What would you do – or not do – in order to survive?
But what we did not anticipate is that their campaign would take three long years and the story would take another turn. Struggles cause people to change and, as the campaign dragged on, we were amazed to observe each woman’s growing sense of self-confidence and self-worth, their agency and empowerment. It then became clear to us that this was the real story and that their struggle against Forever 21 mattered not just for its own sake, but because it served as a catalyst for each of their individual stories. The story of María taking control and deciding to leave her husband. The story of Maura learning to cope with her fears and struggling to reunite with her children. The story of Lupe, who grew up feeling ugly and insignificant, becoming an organizer and one day reflecting on her path from atop Victoria’s Peak overlooking Hong Kong. Made in L.A. is a story about the decision to stand up, to say I exist. And I have rights.
I am humbled and honored to have been allowed to capture this on film. Like María, Maura and Lupe, at the end of a long journey, we all got something that we had never expected.
– Director/Producer/Cinematographer Almudena Carracedo
Robert Bahar is also a creator of http://www.doculink.org/, a grassroots organization and network for documentary filmmakers. He works as a producer and line producer on documentaries and works on the International Documentary Association's board of directors.
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