Coming to PBS’ Independent Lens this coming Monday, October 28: THE GRADUATES/LOS GRADUADOS – GIRLS
Bernardo Ruiz’s exploration of the experiences of Latino/a youth in high school makes its debut on PBS over two consecutive weeks. The two films have been previewed at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival as well as at community screenings across the country. Critically, the series will be presented bilingually, making it accessible to wider audiences.
Produced as part of the AMERICAN GRADUATE initiative, which aims to assist local communities in addressing the dropout crisis, Ruiz’s films focus on the diverse and specific challenges faced by Latino/a students in America’s high schools. Noting studies that have found that one-third of Latino students don’t graduate from high school on time, Ruiz seeks to illuminate why through candid testimony from a small group of students. The first hour focuses on female students, with next week’s spotlighting young Latino males. The three young women represent different parts of the country, and different concerns – Darlene, from Tulsa OK, saw few options in school and set out to create her own family, becoming a teen mother; Stephanie views education as a way out of her dangerous Southside Chicago neighborhood, leading to her involvement in school activities; and Chastity, from the Bronx, has struggled with feeling responsible for taking care of her family, which has faced homeless more than once. Permitted to tell their own stories, these three subjects humanize common factors that contribute to the dropout rate – unsupportive or under-resourced schools, the lures and dangers of drugs and gangs, and familial pressures borne out of economic necessity – making what otherwise may seem to be amorphous excuses into something both concrete and sympathetic.
what (not) to doc 