The New Americans

CONTACT:
Mary Lugo at 770-623-8190 lugo@negia.net
Randall Cole, ITVS, at 415-356-8383, ext. 254 randall_cole@itvs.org 

(San Francisco, CA)—America has seen many waves of immigration since the country's founding–some came to escape political or religious persecution, others to seek their riches in a new land, some came as privileged merchants, and countless others with little more than the clothes on their backs. Their stories are as diverse and varied as the countries which they left behind. Yet despite the fact that most Americans have personal or family stories of immigration to the United States, the country is currently experiencing a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment—feelings that have ebbed and flowed throughout our nation's history. 

The Independent Television Service (ITVS) presents Kartemquin Films' THE NEW AMERICANS, a seven-hour, three-part documentary miniseries that follows four years in the lives of a diverse group of contemporary immigrants and refugees as they make the age-old journey from around the globe to start new lives in America. The series premieres as a part of the critically acclaimed Independent Lens series on PBS stations nationwide beginning Monday, March 29, 2004 at 9 P.M ET/PT (check local listings), and was executive produced by Steve James (director of HOOP DREAMS and the recent critical hit STEVIE) and long-time award-winning filmmaker Gordon Quinn, with Gita Saedi serving as series producer. The five stories were directed by award-winning filmmakers Renee Tajima-Pena (Mexican), Indu Krishnan (Indian), Steve James (Nigerian), Jerry Blumenthal and Gordon Quinn (Palestinian), and Susana Aikin and Carlos Aparicio(Dominican Republic). 

In the style of Kartemquin's classic HOOP DREAMS, this series intimately connects viewers to its subjects starting in a refugee camp or homeland, long before they wear that defining label of "immigrant,” then following them from their emotional departures abroad, through their first pivotal years in America. The immigrants featured are:

• Ogoni refugees from Nigeria are English-speaking and well-educated, yet they work as maids, janitors and kitchen help, struggling to make ends meet in Chicago. Barine is the mother of four and the proud sister of slain Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, whose execution by the Nigerian government led to the Ogoni's refugee plight. Another refugee, Israel, was trained as a chemical engineer but was arrested and tortured when he became an environmental activist back home. Though they did not willingly choose to leave their homeland, Israel and his wife Ngozi, are determined to succeed and provide for their children despite the obstacles they face here in America.
• Dominicans Ricardo and José are highly prized baseball prospects in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization. The series follows them from the Dodgers training camp in the Dominican Republic to spring training in Florida and through their first years in America, as they chase their baseball dream, in such unlikely places as Great Falls, Montana, and Albany, Georgia. Will they become the next Pedro Martinez or Sammy Sosa, or be forced to return to the barrios of Santo Domingo? 
• Naima is a young Palestinian woman who falls in love with and marries Hatem, a first-generation Palestinian-American from Chicago. With one brother dead and another imprisoned during the first Intifada, Naima is determined to leave the West Bank and start anew, far from the war-torn region. As she begins her new life in Chicago, viewers see her cope with homesickness, the demands of a new husband and career, as well as the profound affects of the second Intifada and the aftermath of September 11th. 
• Pedro Flores is a Mexican immigrant who works as a meatpacker in rural Kansas in order to support his wife and six children back in Guanajuato, Mexico. This story dramatizes one of the profound changes afoot in the nation's heartland— the huge influx of poor immigrants from developing countries into the South and Midwest, drawn by work in some of the United States' most debilitating industries. The Flores story is also one of a strong family's tireless and tumultuous efforts to legally end their long separation and live together as a family in the "promised land.” 
• Anjan is a computer programmer from Bangalore (the Silicon Valley of India) who marries Harshini and migrates to the San Francisco Bay Area to pursue an Internet fortune and "explore the world beyond India.” Through Anjan, viewers meet some of the more than 60,000 other Indian immigrants who have come to chase this high-tech version of the "American Dream.” He and his wife arrive during the dot.com boom, but soon find themselves coping with a dot.com bust that inordinately impacts the lives of many high tech immigrants. 

The broadcast of THE NEW AMERICANS series could not be more timely. In February 2002, The New York Times reported that the United States was home to 56 million foreign-born residents and children of immigrants in 2000, compared to 34 million just three decades earlier. Yet today, as throughout its history, many Americans feel ambivalence—or worse—toward immigrants. With a slowdown in the nation's economy, and suspicion of newcomers remaining high in the wake of 9/11, THE NEW AMERICANS offers a dramatic look at who is coming to the United States, why they are leaving their homelands, and gives us the opportunity to see immigrants and refugees not as strangers in our midst, but as people who share the same dreams and hopes as native born Americans. And perhaps just as importantly, the series lets Americans see America anew, through the eyes of contemporary immigrants. 

In conjunction with the national PBS public television broadcast of THE NEW AMERICANS, ITVS's Community Connections Project has joined forces with several prominent national organizations, including Active Voice, the National Issues Forums Institute and Outreach Extensions, and in partnership with organizations such as American Association of Community Colleges and the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, to carry out extensive educational and community engagement campaigns nationwide. The goal is to create dialogue and build bridges between U.S.-born and long-term residents, and more-recent arrivals. More specific information about resource materials and planned activities can be found on the ITVS Web site's outreach area at www.itvs.org/outreach/newamericans. Visitors to the website can also use an interactive map to find out what activities are planned for their area, or to submit information about activities and events they may be involved in planning. 

THE NEW AMERICANS's dynamic companion Web site at www.pbs.org/newamericans will invite users to learn more about the series and the featured characters, and dig deeper into the subjects of immigration and globalization. The site will celebrate and explore the cultural riches each family brings to their new country in an interactive format. Visitors will be invited to share recipes and other items from cultures with which they associate and to contribute their own immigration stories, whether newly arrived or 5th-generation American. The "Where Are They Now” section will give users the most up-to-date information on each family. Background on the making of the film and how the subjects were chosen and interviews with the filmmakers will also be available. Extensive lesson plans for educators and guides for discussion group facilitators will also be included. The "Talkback” area of the site will invite comments and feedback, and the "Learn More” section will provide links to resources and more in-depth information about the issues from across the Web. 

A companion book to the series will be published by The New Press in spring 2004, written by Rubén Mart'nez with photographs by Joseph Rodr'guez. The home video series will be available for purchase through Home Vision Entertainment, and orders can be placed by calling 1-888-572-8918. 

THE NEW AMERICANS is produced by Kartemquin Films in association with the Independent Television Service (ITVS) with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional major funding was provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and PBS. THE NEW AMERICANS is a presentation of ITVS in association with Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) and Asian Women United/National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA). 

PRODUCTION CREDITS 

EPISODE ONE
Executive Producers: Steve James, Gordon Quinn
Series Producer: Gita Saedi
Story Directors: Susana Aikin, Carlos Aparicio, Jerry Blumenthal, Steve James, Gordon Quinn Editors: David E. Simpson, Steve James
Post Production Supervisor: Leslie Simmer
Production Manager: Karen Larson
Music Composed By: Norman Arnold 

EPISODE TWO
Executive Producers: Steve James, Gordon Quinn
Series Producer: Gita Saedi
Story Directors: Susana Aikin, Carlos Aparicio, Jerry Blumenthal, Steve James, Gordon Quinn, Renee Tajima-Pena
Editors: David E. Simpson, Steve James
Post Production Supervisor: Leslie Simmer
Production Manager: Karen Larson
Music Composed By: Norman Arnold 

EPISODE THREE
Executive Producers: Steve James, Gordon Quinn
Series Producer: Gita Saedi
Story Directors: Susana Aikin, Carlos Aparicio, Jerry Blumenthal, Steve James, Indu Krishnan, Gordon Quinn, Renee Tajima-Pena
Editors: David E. Simpson, Steve James
Post Production Supervisor: Leslie Simmer
Production Manager: Karen Larson
Music Composed By: Norman Arnold 

About Kartemquin Films Kartemquin's best known film, HOOP DREAMS, won every major critics prize and journalism award in 1995, including a Peabody, the Independent Spirit Award, the National, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago Film Critics Awards, and was also named to over 150 "Ten Best” lists. After garnering the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, HOOP DREAMS was released theatrically by Fine Line Features to unprecedented critical acclaim and was one of the highest grossing documentaries up to that time, and one of highest-rated documentaries broadcast on PBS. 

Based in Chicago, Kartemquin has been home to a wide range of independent filmmakers, making important social issue documentaries. Kartemquin's first film, HOME FOR LIFE (1966), is a powerful chronicle of two elderly people entering a home for the aged. This film, which Roger Ebert called "an extraordinarily moving documentary,” established the direction Kartemquin would take for the next three decades—making films that examine contemporary society by chronicling the stories of real people. Over the years Kartemquin's films have premiered and won prizes at festivals throughout the world and have been broadcast nationally to critical acclaim here at home. Among their many notable works are THE LAST PULLMAN CAR (1983), which aired nationally on PBS; GOLUB (1989), about American artist Leon Golub, which premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1990; VIETNAM, LONG TIME COMING (1997), which was broadcast on NBC and won a National Emmy and the Best Documentary award from the Director's Guild of America; and 5 GIRLS (2001), which followed two years in the lives of five resilient teenage girls who figure out how to triumph over adversity and aired on PBS. Most recently, Kartemquin produced REFRIGERATOR MOTHERS (2002), which explored the untold stories of an entire generation of women who were falsely blamed for their children's autism. The film premiered nationally on PBS and won numerous festival awards. 

About Independent Lens 
Independent Lens is a weekly series airing Tuesday nights at 10 P.M. on PBS. The acclaimed anthology series features documentaries and a limited number of fiction films united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement and unflinching visions of their independent producers. Independent Lens features unforgettable stories about a unique individual, community or moment in history, which prompted Nancy Franklin in The New Yorker to write "Watching Independent Lens ... is like going into an independent bookstore—you don't always find what you were looking for but you often find something you didn't even know you wanted.” Presented by ITVS, the series is supported by interactive companion websites, and national publicity and community outreach campaigns. Further information about the series is available at www.pbs.org/independent lens. Independent Lens is jointly curated by ITVS and PBS, and is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private corporation funded by the American people, with additional funding provided by PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

About ITVS 
Independent Television Service (ITVS) funds and presents award-winning documentaries and dramas on public television, innovative new media projects on the Web and the weekly series Independent Lens on Tuesday nights at 10 P.M. on PBS. ITVS is a miracle of public policy created by media activists, citizens and politicians seeking to foster plurality and diversity in public television. ITVS was established by a historic mandate of Congress to champion independently produced programs that take creative risks, spark public dialogue and serve underserved audiences. Since its inception in 1991, ITVS programs have revitalized the relationship between the public and public television, bringing TV audiences face-to-face with the lives and concerns of their fellow Americans. More information about ITVS can be obtained by visiting www.itvs.org. ITVS is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American People 

About PBS 
PBS, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, is a private, nonprofit media enterprise owned and operated by the nation's 349 public television stations. Serving nearly 90 million people each week, PBS enriches the lives of all Americans through quality programs and education services on noncommercial television, the Internet and other media. More information about PBS is available at www.pbs.org, the leading dot-org Web site on the Internet.

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