Farm Workers & LatinX Immigrants in the United States

This historical documentary tells the story of Cesar Chavez, the charismatic founder of the United Farmworkers Union, and the movement that he inspired-one that touched the hearts of millions of Americans with the grape and lettuce boycotts, a nonviolent movement that confronted conservative politicians like Ronald Reagan and the powerful Teamsters Union.

There is more interest in food these days than ever, yet there is very little interest in the hands that pick it. Farmworkers, the foundation of our fresh food industry, are routinely abused and robbed of wages. In extreme cases they can be beaten, sexually harassed or even enslaved - all within the borders of the United States. Food Chains reveals the human cost in our food supply and the complicity of large buyers of produce like fast food and supermarkets.

Filmed on both sides of the border, the documentary chronicles the life of such farm- workers while looking at the issues surrounding the program. The film focuses on a 66-year-old Mexican farmer, Candelario Moreno Gonzales, who works on the tobacco, cucumber and pepper fields of the Western Farms in North Carolina . He has made this annual trip for forty years, initially as an undocumented immigrant for which he was jailed three times. Now too old to risk illegal crossings, he has paid as much as a thousand dollars for his bus fare and other costs of participating in the program. Although he is twenty years older than most of his fellow workers, he puts in the same grueling hours with no hope of citizenship and the benefits that go along with it. The film also shows the troubles of his employer, Len Wester, who may loose his farm because of drought. Wester, like many US farmers, is dependent on foreign farm laborers to sustain his farm. Candelario loves his home and family but the deteriorating condition of Mexico's rural economy leave him little choice but to continue his yearly trek. As he says " I need to go as long as I can work. I'm old. The work has worn me down and made me tired. My family needs me at home in Mexico, but I need to be here too."

Every year there are more than 400,000 American children who are torn away from their friends, schools and homes to pick the food we all eat. Zulema, Perla and Victor labor as migrant farm workers, sacrificing their own childhoods to help their families survive. THE HARVEST/LA COSECHA profiles these three as they journey from the scorching heat of Texas’ onion fields to the winter snows of the Michigan apple orchards and back south to the humidity of Florida's tomato fields to follow the harvest.