The New Americans is a documentary series that interweaves stories of contemporary immigrants and refugees, following them from the homelands and refugee camps to their first pivotal years in America. In Hardball Dreams we will follow the story of two Dominican baseball players, Ricardo and Jose, from the Dodgers camp in Santo Domingo to spring training in Florida and through their first years in America playing professional baseball in places as far-flung and overwhelmingly white as Great Falls, Montana. In Kansas Stories we will learn about two meatpacking families and their struggle to reunite with their children – the Flores, originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, and the Caos, refugees from Vietnam.
Steve James
Executive Producer and Series Editor/Director of the Nigerian story
Steve James is best known as the award-winning director, producer and co-editor of Hoop Dreams, for which he won several prestigious awards. He also received an Academy Award nomination for editing.
James recently completed his first documentary since finishing Hoop Dreams. Stevie is a feature-length portrait of a young man for whom James was once a Big Brother. The film premiered at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival and went on to win multiple awards at film festivals worldwide. The film was released theatrically by Lions Gate to great acclaim.
In 1997, James wrote and directed his first dramatic feature, Prefontaine, which premiered at Sundance. He also directed the TNT movie Passing Glory and most recently, Joe and Max, which premiered on Starz!.
James is currently producing and directing Reel Paradise, a feature documentary about former “indie film guru” John Pierson, who took his family to live for a year on a remote island in Fiji.
Gordon Quinn
Executive Producer/Co-Director of the Palestinian Story
Gordon Quinn, president and founding member of Kartemquin Films, has been making documentaries for more than 35 years. In his long career he has served as an executive producer, producer, director, cameraman and editor. Roger Ebert called his first film, Home for Life (1966), “an extraordinarily moving documentary.”
Recently, Quinn won the Documentary Cinematography Award at the Sundance Film Festival for Stevie, on which he was also the executive producer and producer. On Refrigerator Mothers (2002), he again served as executive producer, producer and cinematographer. The award-winning film tells the stories of a generation of mothers that the medical establishment blamed for causing their children’s autism.
In 2001, Quinn executive produced 5 Girls, which premiered on P.O.V. In 1999, he produced and directed Vietnam. Long Time Coming, which tells the story of disabled and able-bodied Vietnamese and American veterans on a journey of reconciliation, athletic achievements and emotional discovery. It won several awards, including an Emmy and Best Documentary from the Director’s Guild of America.
Quinn also served as executive producer on Kartemquin’s best-known film, Hoop Dreams. Some of his early award-winning productions include The Chicago Maternity Center Story (1976), about saving Chicago’s historic neighborhood-based home-delivery service; Taylor Chain I: Story in a Union Local (1980), Taylor Chain II: A Story of Collective Bargaining (1984) and The Last Pullman Car (1983), three films about union democracy and corporate disinvestments; and Golub (1990), a documentary on art, politics and the media, featuring American artist Leon Golub.
Gita Saedi
Series Producer, Producer of the Nigerian story
Gita Saedi is an award-winning independent documentary producer/director who has been working in film for more than 12 years. She has been on producing teams for Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, CBS and PBS in the United States and RTE in Ireland.
Her projects include 24 short films for the JFK Museum in Boston; No Time to be a Child, a three-part PBS series on children and violence; The Tourist Trap, a four-part documentary about cultural differences shot in Turkey; and a multi-part series on Celtic heritage produced in Ireland.
Other documentary credits include coordinating Jack, a CBS Emmy-award winning feature-length documentary about John F. Kennedy; prime-time holiday specials for CBS Entertainment; and field producing Journey Towards Peace, a PBS documentary chronicling a peace mission in Senegal headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and John Hope Franklin.
Saedi has won numerous awards and festivals for her independent short Everybody Nose. She received an Emmy nomination for directing short vignettes for the regional series Artbeat.
Indu Krishnan
Director of the Indian story
Indu Krishnan is herself an immigrant from India, who now lives in San Francisco with her husband and son. She has produced and directed numerous immigrant-themed works including Knowing Her Place, a documentary portrait of the dynamics between an Indian woman and three generations of her family living in the U.S. and India.
Krishnan worked collectively with a number of other producers and Deep Dish TV on the Gulf Crisis TV Project, a series of half-hour programs critically examining the first U.S. war with Iraq. She is currently working on A Stone in the Rice, a documentary about a proscribed community of women artists in India.
Krishnan has received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as grants from the NEA, NYSCA and other foundations. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Delhi and a master’s degree in media studies from the New School for Social Research.
Susana Aikin and Carlos Aparicio
Directors of the Dominican story
Both originally from Spain, Susana Aikin and Carlos Aparicio are an Emmy award-winning producing/directing/editing team.
Among the many documentaries they have produced dealing with issues of race and migration are In the Land of Plenty, a film about the life of an undocumented Mexican strawberry picker; The Transformation, which explores AIDS, survival and the American religious right through the story of Ricardo, a former homeless prostitute transvestite; and The Salt Mines, a film about a Latino/gay/homeless community living in abandoned garbage trucks by the Hudson River in New York City.
The team has received Rockefeller Fellowships and grants from the American Film Institute, the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund and the Jerome Foundation among others, and has won awards at multiple film festivals.
Renee Tajima-Peña
Director of the Mexican story
Renee Tajima-Peña has become a chronicler of the Asian American community with several award-winning films, including Who Killed Vincent Chin?, an investigation of the racially-motivated murder of a Chinese American man in Detroit; and My America…or Honk if You Love Buddha. She has been honored with numerous awards, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Feature Documentary, and has twice earned fellowships from both the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York Foundation on the Arts.
Tajima-Peña is also a writer and former film critic for The Village Voice and cultural commentator for NPR. She has written and lectured widely on Asian American and independent film and video, and was the founding director of the Asian American International Video Festival and former director of Asian Cine-Vision. She is currently producing two documentaries on immigrant labor in conjunction with Asian Women United.
Jerry Blumenthal
Co-Director of the Palestinian story
Jerry Blumenthal has been a director, producer, editor and sound recorder for the past 35 years. Along with Gordon Quinn, he was one of the original founders of Kartemquin Films. Their most recent documentary, Vietnam. Long Time Coming earned an Emmy award and the award for Best Documentary from the Directors Guild of America.
Blumenthal co-produced and directed several of Kartemquin’s films, including Golub, The Chicago Maternity Center Story, Taylor Chain II: A Story of Collective Bargaining, The Last Pullman Car and Taylor Chain: Story in a Union Local.
Blumenthal continues to live and work in Chicago with Kartemquin Educational Films. He is currently working on Late Works are the Catastrophes, a new piece about the paintings of Leon Golub.
Evangeline Griego
Co-Producer of the Mexican story
Evangeline Griego is an award-winning independent documentary producer/director who has been working in film for 17 years. With Griego in the director’s chair, her company, About Time Productions, produced the documentary Pano Arte: Images From Inside and the bilingual documentary, Border Visions, Visiones Fronterizos. The production company is currently working on God Willing, about a family’s heart-wrenching efforts to extricate itself from a bible-based nomadic cult’s grip.
Griego served as festival manager for the annual OUTFEST, Los Angeles’s Gay & Lesbian film festival and is the co-founder of the Silver Lake Film Festival. She is a board member of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers and OUTFEST.
Griego’s extensive production management and line producing experience includes short and feature films, music videos and public service announcements. She is currently line producing a series for WETA-TV.
EPISODE 2
Series Story Editor
Leslie Simmer
Music Composer
Norman Arnold
Narrator
Ismail Bashey
Dominican Story Producers
Susana Aikin
Carlos Aparicio
Mexican Story Producers
Renee Tajima-Pena
Evangeline Griego
Nigerian Story Producer
Gita Saedi
Palestinian Story Producers
Jerry Blumenthal
Fenell Doremus
Gordon Quinn
Executive Producer for ITVS
Sally Jo Fifer
Production Manager
Karen Larson
Technical Supervisor / Color Correction
Jim Morrissette
Post Production Supervisor
Leslie Simmer
Post Production Manager
Zak Piper
Post Production Coordinator
Aaron Wickenden
Music Consultants
Michelle Kuznetsky
Mary Ramos
Camera
Carlos Aparicio (Dominican Story)
Vicente Franco (Dominican Story)
Steve James (Nigerian Story)
Dana Kupper (Nigerian, Mexican Story)
Gordon Quinn (Palestinian, Mexican Story)
Sound Recording
Jerry Blumenthal (Palestinian Story)
Fenell Doremus (Palestinian, Mexican Story)
Bruno Pataro (Dominican Story)
Gita Saedi (Nigerian Story)
Adam Singer (Nigerian,Mexican Story)
Opening Titles and Graphics
Digital Kitchen
Narration Recording
Post Effects, Chicago
Tom Blakemore, Recording Engineer
Bryen Hensley, Recording Engineer
Doug Nachowitz, Recording Assistant
Audio Mix / Assistant Editor
Zak Piper
Additional Graphics Compositing
Aaron Wickenden
Equipment Coordinator
Anthony Allen
Administrative Staff
Rebecca Carter
Wm. Jason Mcinnis
Associate Producers
Virginia Alvarez (Indian Story)
Lucilla Moctezuma (Dominican Story)
Eduard Torregrosa (Mexican Story)
Matt Valentine (Dominican Story)
Additional Camera
Jim Fetterley
Ed Gabriel
Josh Hyde
Lawman Maeba
Steve Osborn
Zak Piper
Mirko Popadic
Gita Saedi
Ines Sommer
Aaron Wickenden
Segment Editing
Susana Aikin (Dominican Story)
Jerry Blumenthal (Palesitinian Story)
Johanna Demetrakas (Mexican Story)
Fenell Doremus (Palestinian Story)
Lisa Leeman (Mexican Story)
Gita Saedi (Nigerian Story)
Mexican Story Assistant Editor
Doan La
Nigerian Fixer
Godson Naasua
Legal Consulting
Jennifer Gaylord
Paul Brennen
Sloss Law
Peter J. Strand
Holland & Knight Llc
Interns
Reina Alvarez
Elena Anderson
Johnathon Armsterd
Michael Bancroft
Rena Barakat
Claire Beckett
Erol Bereha
Stanlyn Breve
David Brown
Clayton Brown
Vanessa Buccella
Anuradha Chandra
Christian Collins
Lisa Delgadilo
Tom Desch
Liz Fiore
Andres Flores
Katie Friesema
Christine Gililand
Marianne Greco
Sara Heineman
Daniel Herman
Frank Hill
Josh Hyde
Megan Inman
Sara Kaminker
Shaun Kershner
Emily Krone
Nadav Kurtz
Thea Lux
Andrew Manna
Alejandro Marin
Kate Masters
Arwa Merchant
Elizabeth Meyer
Lyla Miller
Kyna Morgan
Brad Morris
Gabriela Munroy
Nureya Muslimah Namaz
Celeste Neuhaus
Sara Peak
Jillian Pendell
Nuno Pereira
Erin Rasmussen
Shivani Reddy
Lisa Reyes
Rebecca Rose
Gemma Ryan
Luciano Salem
Sarah Salon-Hanover
Melissa Schmitt
Jessica Sellountos
Joan Soloman
Keely M. Stanley
Pria Thakran
Nahoko Yoshino
Translators
Rana Abuqhalous
Suhair Al Qadasi
Ahmad Beder
Avary Cahill
Julia Garcia
Sadath Garcia
Sonya Garcia
Suzan Dughman
Josh Hyde
Rafah Abu Innab
Mai Kakish
Ines Lagos
Alejandro Marin
Dima Mazen Qato
Sonia Nasief
Kareem Rabie
Ahmed Ramaha
Aram Shahin
Additional Footage
The WPA Film Library
Catma Films
Greenpeace International,
ITN Archive LTD
Nomad Films
KRTV-Montana
MacNeil/Lehrer Productions
This program was produced by Kartemquin Educational Films, Inc. which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2003 Kartemquin Educational Films, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Produced in association with the Independent Television Service.
With additional support from:
BBC, Nick Fraser
SBS TV Australia
VPRO The Netherlands
EPISODE 3
Series Story Editor
Leslie Simmer
Music Composer
Norman Arnold
Narrator
Ismail Bashey
Dominican Story Producers
Susana Aikin
Carlos Aparicio
Indian Story Producer
Indu Krishnan
Mexican Story Producers
Evangeline Griego
Renee Tajima-Pena
Nigerian Story Producer
Gita Saedi
Palestinian Story Producers
Jerry Blumenthal
Fenell Doremus
Gordon Quinn
Executive Producer for ITVS
Sally Jo Fifer
Production Manager
Karen Larson
Technical Supervision / Color Correction
Jim Morrissette
Post Production Supervisor
Leslie Simmer
Post Production Manager
Zak Piper
Post Production Coordinator
Aaron Wickenden
Music Consultants
Michelle Kuznetsky
Mary Ramos
Camera
Carlos Aparicio (Dominican Story)
Roddy Blelloch (Indian Story)
Steve James (Nigerian Story)
Dana Kupper (Mexican, Nigerian Story)
Gordon Quinn (Palestinian, Mexican Story)
Scott Sinkler (Indian Story)
Viren Thambidorai (Indian Story)
Sound Recording
Jerry Blumenthal (Palestinian Story)
Fenell Doremus (Palestinian, Mexican Story)
Bruno Pataro (Dominican Story)
Gita Saedi (Nigerian Story)
Opening Titles and Graphics
Digital Kitchen
Narration Recording
Post Effects, Chicago
Tom Blakemore, Recording Enginner
Bryen Hensley, Recording Engineer
Doug Nachowitz, Recording Assistant
Audio Mix / Assistant Editor
Zak Piper
Additional Graphics Compositing
Aaron Wickenden
Equipment Coordinator
Anthony Allen
Administrative Staff
Rebecca Carter
Wm Jason Mcinnis
Associate Producers
Virginia Alvarez (Dominican Story)
Ann Coppel (Dominican Story)
T. Jayashree (Indian Story)
Lucilla Moctezuma (Dominican Story)
Tina Nguyen (Mexican Story)
Matt Valentine (Dominican Story)
Additional Camera
Jim Fetterley
Ed Gabriel
Trey Haney
Steve Osborn
Mirko Popadic
Adam Singer
Ines Sommer
Dan Starnes
Additional Sound
Vadan Less
Lauretta Molitor
Adam Singer
Segment Editing
Susana Aikin (Dominican Story)
Jerry Blumenthal (Palestinian Story)
Johanna Demetrakas (Mexican Story)
Fenell Doremus (Palestinian Story)
Indu Krishnan (Indian Story)
Lisa Leeman (Mexican Story)
Gita Saedi (Nigerian Story)
Indian Story Consulting Editor
Lucy Massie Phoenix
Mexican Story Assistant Editor
Doan La
Production Assistance
Christian Collins
Robert Davis
Alejandro Marin
Jennifer Merkle
Rosalind Sagara
Doug Leavitt Schwartz
Clodovico Velez
Stills
Simin Farkhondeh (Indian Story)
Joseph Rodriguez (Production)
Legal Consulting
Jennifer Gaylord
Paul Brennen
Sloss Law
Peter J. Strand
Holland & Knight Llc
Interns
Reina Alvarez
Elena Anderson
Johnathon Armsterd
Michael Bancroft
Rena Barakat
Claire Beckett
Erol Bereha
Stanlyn Breve
David Brown
Clayton Brown
Vanessa Buccella
Anuradha Chandra
Christian Collins
Lisa Delgadilo
Tom Desch
Liz Fiore
Andres Flores
Katie Friesema
Christine Gililand
Marianne Greco
Sara Heineman
Daniel Herman
Frank Hill
Josh Hyde
Megan Inman
Sara Kaminker
Shaun Kershner
Emily Krone
Nadav Kurtz
Thea Lux
Andrew Manna
Alejandro Marin
Kate Masters
Arwa Merchant
Elizabeth Meyer
Lyla Miller
Kyna Morgan
Brad Morris
Gabriela Munroy
Nureya Muslimah Namaz
Celeste Neuhaus
Sara Peak
Jillian Pendell
Nuno Pereira
Erin Rasmussen
Shivani Reddy
Lisa Reyes
Rebecca Rose
Gemma Ryan
Luciano Salem
Sarah Salon-Hanover
Melissa Schmitt
Jessica Sellountos
Joan Soloman
Keely M. Stanley
Pria Thakran
Nahoko Yoshino
Translators
Rana Abuqhalous
Suhair Al Qadasi
Ahmad Beder
Avary Cahill
Julia Garcia
Sadath Garcia
Sonya Garcia
Suzan Dughman
Josh Hyde
Rafah Abu Innab
Mai Kakish
Ines Lagos
Alejandro Marin
Dima Mazen Qato
Sonia Nasief
Kareem Rabie
Ahmed Ramaha
Aram Shahin
Additional Footage
The WPA Film Library
Frontline/ WGBH-TV, Boston
NBC News Archives
Major League Baseball Footage
Courtesy of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc.
Ricardo Rodriguez Photograph
Courtesy of the Plain Dealer © 2002
Special Thanks To
The Abudayyeh Family
Betto Arcos
The Dodgers Campo Las Palmas
The Los Angeles Dodgers
The Villanueva – Flores Family
The Garcia Family
Luchy Guerra
Susan Gzesh
Heartland Alliance/
Traveler And Immigrant’s Aid
Lewis Kimsey
The Wiwa-Lawani Family
The Nwidor Family
The Muncion-Rodriguez Family
Ed Silverman
Unhcr-Benin Office
Us State Department
Woody Wickham
Additional Thanks To
2Wire
Interchurch Refugee Agency
Danny Alpert
Virginia Koch
Juan Andrade, El Remedio
Peter Kuttner
Annexient
Ngoan Le
Jose Arce Acosta
Lisa Levy, Voz Latina
Rafael Avila
Levy Security
Mr. Omar Baah
Mohammad Abde Loader
Bluewireless
Marshall Field’s
BrassRing
Methodist Ministries
Santiago Burciaga, U.S. Consulate
Norma Morfa – US Customs
Burlington Coat Factory
Northern Illinois University
Career Academy
Northwestern Hospital
Joel Carp
Northwestern University Hospital
Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Our Lady of the Angels Convent
Christ’s Oasis Ministries
Pablo Peguero
CircleLine, NY
S&C Electric
Coffee Day Cafe, Bangalore
The Senewa Family
COMAT
Sequoia Theatres, Garden City
DJ Arabia, Shereen Isbatan
Service Is Us
Delta Airlines
Shopper’s Stop
Tommy Lasorda
The Stimac Family
Dominick’s Finer Foods
Sullivan High School
Nida Emmons, U.S Consulate
Swedish Covenant Hospital
The Fairmont Hotel
Toshiharu Takatsuka
Professor Cynthia Farrar, UTEP
Thorec Hospital
Foster Methodist Nursing Home
Truman College
Garden City Community College
Union Church – St. Louis, MO
Garden City Public Schools
Pat Usawa-Ruben, US Consulate
Rodney Germain, INS Florida
Virgin Atlantic
Grip Design
Jerry Weinstein
Hector Guerrero
Owens Wiwa
Bill Geivett
Erku Yimar
Headstart Nursery, CA
Impetus
Judy Hoffman
Honda of Sunnyvale
Claudine Jordan
Ruthie Garcia
Issa Boulos
John Aebischer
Jason Bitner
The Ogoni Community in Chicago
Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers
Toham African Restaurant – Chicago
The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP)
Isabel Mullens, Immigration & Naturalization Service
Sister Levita Rohlman, Catholic Social Services
Sharon Rummery, Public Relations, Immigration and Naturalization Service
Donna Sanchez Jennings, Mexican American Ministries
Penny Schwab, Executive Director, Mexican American Ministries
St Luke Evangelist Catholic Church of Great Falls
Sherry Taylor, Seward County Historical Museum
Lic. Carlos Todd Romero, Servicios Medicos De La Frontera
Sergio Tovar Alvarado, Delegado, Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores
United Nations High Commission on Refugees
Ron Wilson, Public Relations, SF International Airport
Matthew Connely, US Consulate, Chennai
Wilson Broadway Currency Exchange
Howard Area Community Center
The Hyatt McCormick Chicago
Jane Addams Vocational Training Center
The Hyatt Regency and McCormick Hotels of Chicago
Computer-Aided Marriage Bureau (CAMB)
The Illinois Department of Drivers and Motor Vehicles
Rana Jaber – International Organization of Migration (IOM)
The Woody Band of Ogoniland
This program was produced by Kartemquin Educational Films, Inc., which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2003 Kartemquin Educational Films, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Produced in association with the Independent Television Service
With additional support from:
BBC, Nick Fraser
SBS TV Australia
VPRO The Netherlands
DVD copies for this program are currently available.
For more information, please visit: www.kartemquin.com/films/the-new-americans