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Harvest of Empire. DVD. By Peter Getzels. New York: Third World Newsreel, 2013. Film. 92:35 minutes.
This documentary film, based on Juan González's 2000 book of the same title, approaches the subject of Latinos in the United States from a position of advocacy through education. By the end of this century, the majority of the people living in the United States will trace their origins not to Europe but to Latin America. This trans- formation has already triggered waves of anti-immigrant sentiment and a pervasive sense that the growing numbers of Latinos "don't belong here." The film provides a welcome challenge to such parochial views, broadening the frame to examine Latin American migration to the United States in the wider context of an interconnected his- tory of the Americas. The major migrations north, the film contends, have been the "direct result" of U.S. foreign policy actions in the countries to its south.
The documentary packs much content into 90 minutes, developing its thesis through historical case studies of Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Mexico. While the stories of...