20 Nov These are perilous times. Let’s work together.
These are perilous times we face. While we may feel exhausted and despondent at the prospect of years of struggle ahead to protect our basic human rights under the onslaught of a regime bent on dividing us, it’s no time to give up. We need to connect in solidarity and hold steady, creating space for the power of our art and activism.
Our film BORDERLAND | The Line Within is the story of people living in the U.S. who were reacting to the unbridled cruelty of the Trump administration’s war on immigrants. Their responses included civil disobedience with creative humanitarian ideals at the center, echoing a rich history of struggle in the United States which helped end slavery, the ban on women and people of color voting, and pushed for the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty.
BORDERLAND is also the story of courageous immigrant leaders with agency, who were organizing in the shadow of the government’s efforts to capture, incarcerate, deport and separate families – all part of the border industrial complex structured to make profits on human suffering. On the Abrazos Tour with the film this fall we met with so many of these leaders and heard about their work. It is bittersweet considering what may come.
But today we stand resolved. We urge you to support efforts to protect immigrants and immigrant families wherever you may be in the country. The abuse of their human rights doesn’t just threaten them, it threatens all of us.
Since the Trump Republican electoral sweep–and with it, the increased possibility of mass detention and deportation of immigrants– the request to see and to use BORDERLAND in organizing efforts has increased tremendously. People are getting ready for the fights ahead by informing themselves about the lives of immigrants and immigrant communities, and are reaching out to act in solidarity.
We draw strength and inspiration from our community of social justice documentary filmmakers, and the Skylight outreach and impact team that has made BORDERLAND known to audiences in screenings across the country, planting seeds of understanding and activism.
Photo: Skylight
What can you do?
1) Find the local human rights / immigrant rights groups in your area and find ways to work with them.
2) Host a screening of BORDERLAND | The Line Within. We will help you and make it easy for you, even if you’ve never hosted a film screening. Remember that courage is contagious and the courage of the people you’ll meet in the film will affect people positively.
3) Speak up, write an Op-Ed, go out into your community and talk to people. What do they need? How can you act locally?
4) Think about and talk about the stories of struggle of your own family’s immigrant past. What were they? How did you yourself come to be here in the U.S.?
Take good care of yourselves and all your extended families.
We hope to be in touch with you and even see you at one of the screenings and discussions of BORDERLAND | The Line Within, in the coming months.
featured photo: Valeria Ushakova
