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for teenagers, make an epic journey to southern Mexico to meet family members they've never met before.

They made a movie about their journey, and we're talking about their experience and the film.

First Time Home.

Tonight on Northwest, now First Time Home documents the story of four second generation American teenagers who wanted to go back to their families ancestral home in southern Mexico to visit with family members they had never met before.

But embedded inside this film is a deeper story about life in two very different worlds Mexico, where a large portion of the family lives, and the US where children born in this country work to live the American dream while trying to stay in touch with their cultural roots.

First time Home has watched a half dozen film festival awards.

Here's the trailer.

Joining us now are physician, anthropologist and Berkeley professor Seth Holmes, who was the film's producer as Mira Labrada, one of the co-directors on the film.

and Noemi LIBERATO Sanchez, also a co-director on the film.

Great to have you all here for a discussion about your film.

First time home.

I watched it.

It's really compelling.

You know, there's there's a travel piece to it, There's a family piece to it.

It's pretty emotionally compelling at certain points.

And so I just am really excited to have this conversation that we've been talking about for a while and especially being able to share with viewers, Betsy, who just watched that film.

Seth, let's start with you.

How did you guys find each other to make this film?

How did it come about?

Good question.

So years ago, probably 20 years ago, I was in graduate school studying medicine and medical school and doing a Ph.D. in anthropology.

And through the fieldwork for my anthropology degree, I got to know their parents and their grandparents, their grandparents in a small town in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, and their parents in the valley of Washington State.

We ended up working together.

I wrote a book that actually the new edition is just coming out this fall, 2023, called Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies, about their parents, about indigenous immigrants and farm workers, and the importance of farm workers.

I was with their parents when Noemi was born.

I've known them for a while.

So this has been cooking.

This has been a long time coming.

This is this cumulation of a long relationship.

Yes.

Wow.

And we stay in touch and work together on different projects and still in touch with their parents and cousins and aunts and uncles.

And they stay in touch with me.

And it's a I feel honored to have learned a lot from their family's.

It's so when the idea came about and you got wind of this that, hey, Seth is cooking this up with your family, how did you feel about the idea of of being in on a filmmaking team?

Well, it was something new to us.

I, I don't know.

We we it's not something we thought about, really, to do as when our trip started.

We just my sister had brought up saying, like, maybe we should do this for, you know, at the time it was Trump's campaign and she was like, we can show them how our family lives.

And that was just something new, something that we didn't even think about.

It wasn't something we went into the trip to trying to do.

Yeah, Yeah.

There's a organic component to it.

Or just Yeah, like most of the things that happened in the in the video or in the film actually is all raw.

Like in the thing we, we, we never scripted anything.

It was just everything that happened at the moment.

Documentary style.

Yeah.

Film.

And now, Amy, you have an interest in continuing to shoot film and to be involved in communication.

So I have a question for you.

I often find that when I'm shooting something and I shoot a lot of stuff when I'm looking through the viewfinder, I have to remind myself to look up from the viewfinder or look away from the camera to be present and make sure that I am actually experiencing it because it's a little different.

Looking.

Worrying about the box that the image versus actually being there and experiencing that.

Did you sense that at all hearing your first film?

Do you feel like you ever had to look up and say, Wait a minute, I'm down, I'm down here in Oaxaca, Mexico, I need to speak with my my relatives, not just interview on I.

Did you sense that at all?

Was that an experience you had?

Well, like my sister said, we didn't go into into it, like thinking it's going to be a film or a documentary.

So most mostly everything that we recorded was organic.

Obviously, there were times we were like, Oh, wait, maybe we should record a little bit of this too, to be able to get.

Yeah, yeah.

But most of it.

Well, since I've always liked being behind the camera and recording and stuff, it all just felt natural to me.

It just felt like a vlogger, I'd say, you know.

Yeah, that's a good analogy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would just record as we go and I would make sure that I get some good, good content.

But also at the same time, I wouldn't want to burden to my parent.

My family's space or make them feel uncomfortable in any way.

Because although I'm comfortable with the camera and stuff like that, I know that other people aren't always comfortable.

So, yes, I would have to kind of like be like, Well, wait a minute.

Like, are they comfortable with this as well?

Or is it just me being comfortable with it?

So trying to get the fly on the wall piece right with also getting in to capture it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand that.

I want to jump to the end a little bit here, if you will, because I want to make sure that we discuss this part.

And I'm going to ask each one of you this question.

Seth, I want to start with you.

Every film, you know, there are layers to every film.

This is a family story.

It's an adventure story.

But there there are some takeaways in this thing that I think people, if they watch it, I think a lot of people would maybe have different takeaways from it.

In your mind, what are the things that we, the viewing public, need to get out of this film as takeaways?

Important question.

I think the reason knowing me is Muna and there are two cousins who directed it decided in the end that it wasn't a film just for their family, but also for the public.

Was the idea that it's important for everyone, especially in Washington State, to know that their food, their fruits and vegetables are picked by families like theirs, are picked by farmworker families, many of them indigenous, many of whom speak native language that was present long before Spanish, whose families are on both sides of the border and even though they're separated by a border, continue to be in each other's lives and care for one another.

I think that's an important piece that any viewers need to keep in mind when they eat strawberries or blueberries or blackberries or apples they are in touch with and in a certain way, should be respectful of and even thankful to families like their families who you get to know in this film.

Yeah.

And doing jobs in a lot of cases that wouldn't otherwise be done, right?

Correct.

Yeah.

And in states that have implemented more anti-immigrant policies, sometimes their crops aren't picked because there aren't people who will do that work if they if they aren't open to and respectful of the immigrants who often do that work.

And some of the complications that arise from having cross-border relationships, but also multigenerational relationships, it's it's tough.

And that's where some of the emotion of the film comes from, too.

I mean, people's families who understand that there's a good chance they'll never see each other again, which is, you know, wow, that's that that is something that's pretty, pretty impactful from when you watch for when you watch this film.

This Myrna, I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth.

What message do you want?

You know, what was your intention from a message perspective as a filmmaker on this?

Well, mostly to have to have people walk in their shoes, know how it is, how how we live.

I guess just to have a little bit of how we like, how we lived, how our family struggles also, and how I wanted to touch on a topic that sets that of, you know, where if the the product isn't or the fruit isn't picked that they also have what's it called.

They they also have the the on some farms have some of the automation or the machines.

Yeah.

Like the machines that I think you know machines that pick the fruits themselves but it doesn't do as great of a job that you know, people do And what an important role in the economy.

It's a it's a little bit of an unseen piece of the economy, you know, and people maybe don't choose to see it, too.

Yeah.

Like the machines do a good job, but they don't do as great of a job that, you know, I mean, you're the budding filmmaker here.

So what what are some of the messages that you think that are embedded in this and and what do you want me or the viewing public to come away with?

For me, it was also part of like people wanting to be or giving the shoes that people can put themselves in.

But it was also more about pride and more about where you come from and being able to value more of like one's culture.

For me, it was obviously realizing that my parents, although I knew that they did a lot for us and that them coming over here was really risky and something huge.

I feel like going to Mexico and experiencing all of this.

It was just an experience that I couldn't even with, with the words that my parents used to describe their maybe mom and dad aren't so lame after all.

It was, you know, I felt like people's words were just so easy to get to me.

Like obviously being Oaxacan and coming from the culture that I come from, my parents speaking a dialect, it's something that a lot of people like to to look down at is something that it's easy for people to pick out or to make you feel for folks speaking.

Tiki know for others, like people outside of the community, even sometimes even within your own community.

But I feel like it was growing up.

It was just really easy for people to just pick on me, whether it was because of my height, my, my skin color, or the the dialect that my parents speak.

Yeah.

And I grew up wondering, like, why I wasn't lighter or why I, you know, just one questioning a lot of things about myself.

But now that I've gotten to experience what I experience and realize a lot more is just like whatever they have to say really means nothing because they don't know what my parents had to go through.

You got some answers?

Yeah.

And built a little empathy off that to itself.

Correct.

Little adult perspective, correct?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good.

Seth, I want to ask you to you know, you've known this family for for a long darn time.

It's a three.

How many miles is it?

3000 miles.

Is that correct?

3000 mile journey down through to the Oaxacan state, which I my reading says is generally considered safer than a lot of the cartel areas and things.

But still, that's a lot of responsible ability to take for a college professor.

You know, hey, I have this great idea and got some funding for it, man.

How did you approach that and what was your thinking?

Well, like S.M.

knowing me alluded to, it wasn't my idea.

Their parents, when their granddad got really sick, their parents asked me would I go with them so they could meet their granddad.

Fair enough.

Right.

And so they taught me a lot.

They taught me everything that's in the book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies that I've learned about our food system and our society and immigration and how how all of our economy works in relation to that, how discrimination and hierarchies work.

So I felt like they've shared a lot of their lives with me.

And if this is what they're asking of me and I can try to do it, then I'll I'll do my best, I'll do it.

So I traveled with them and during the trip I think it was knowing me as idea.

I don't remember exactly to start filming more for their family originally.

And then later the decision was, okay, this, this footage that we've been filming would actually be good for anyone to see, to learn about us.

So it, it at first it was just a trip for them to meet their granddad, to see where they came from to learn more about their background.

They're the indigenous town that they're from.

Yeah, and, and that felt like something that I should be willing to take on, given how much.

So was there any nervousness, any moments of danger, any times when you thought, Oh boy, what have we gotten ourselves into?

Or is it a smooth sailing?

It was pretty smooth.

Was it okay?

Yeah.

Um, we just went out too late and we were like, at our parents hometown by daylight.

Yeah.

We didn't stop from Phenix until we stayed with your uncle all the way.

We didn't stop anywhere.

We didn't know anyone.

Okay, so you did have it in the back of your mind?

A little bit, Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, that's what I was trying to drive out there.

What was your impression of life and send it San Martin?

Correct.

When you got there, was it like, wow, this is really a dinky little village?

Or did you think, Wow, this is quite nice?

What was your impression?

You know, for me, it was mostly like taking me to where my parents were from or what they obviously it's not the same thing that they lived when they were younger, but it was a little part of what they lived through or what they went through that I that I got to experience, that I was able to be like to say.

There was to think two ways to it.

One part of me thought about like, this is why they left home.

This is why they chose to go, you know, far away from their family, too.

Why do you feel that was clear to you?

Because there is there is no job, at least within the little community.

They have to go out of state.

So and there is very little resources to so that those are the the reasons why they had decided to leave their town, leave home, leave family.

I mean, what was your what was your impression?

Was it more than you expected?

Less than you expected, more severe in terms of poverty than you expected because you're you know, you were born here.

So that's a foreign country to you, too.

Yeah.

What was your impression of that?

It was very, very impressive.

As my sister said it.

It gives you that the idea as to, like, I can see why why they left.

Like till this day, we're in 2023.

There's no running water over there.

And so that in itself says a lot.

My grandparents, I actually had the opportunity to visit them this December that had passed and I witnessed them like wait for Wednesday to come for them to be able to get water and they had to fill up as many barrels as they could as long as the water is running, because then who knows if next week they'll be able to get water once again.

And if not, then they'll just have to walk to the well.

And, you know, just like the agent, these like it not much has changed it.

I would describe it as walking through a story that you've been told over and over again, because obviously my parents told us many stories about how they lived and stuff like that.

So when I got there, I was like, Oh, this is what they were talking about.

Like, Yeah, the stories they told are ring true all of a sudden.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just like you can picture it all and live it.

Seth You know, in the film it became clear that it was very hard on the family here.

They wanted to go down to the extent these messages, but you could tell how emotional it was that they could.

Is that due to immigration status?

And if so, you know, is there ultimately a remedy for that in your mind or, you know, with people who have family cross border?

Is or is it just one of the sacrifices you make if you if you're going to come up and you end up undocumented, that's you end up saying goodbye to family.

How do how do you want us to interpret that?

I think so.

The border does keep a lot of families separated.

And you see in the film that their parents and their aunts and uncles, it had been 15, 16, 18 years since they saw their parents and some of them since they saw their siblings, and some of them even since they saw one of their kids and that's really intense.

And they don't know if they'll ever see those family members.

And that's a huge effect on someone that I think people, other people should be willing to imagine and what that would be like.

I don't that policy related to the border and related to immigration status, it doesn't fit with reality in many ways where the economy we have, the food system we have is transnational, depends on transnational people, labor, goods, agreements, and yet we allow goods to cross and money to cross, but not people to cross.

Even if those people want to visit their parent who's sick, who all of a sudden is really sick and that is a violent reality that money and things are allowed to cross and people aren't.

Even if the people in a certain way need to be with someone who they love and care about.

And I think that's one of the good things about the film, too, is it doesn't really come to any, you know, policy prescriptions per se within the body of the film.

But I do think the empathy piece where you kind of have that moment and say to yourself, you have these people are going to never see each other again.

I mean, that's just the reality of the situation when you cross that border, you know, you're that is goodbye to that, you know, as murder, that's that that hit you at all pretty hard.

I think you captured some of the emotion amongst the parties on both sides.

But when you were shooting that or experiencing that, did that touch you as well?

You know, my sister actually said something once where she was like, it's like leaving a part of you on the other side because we we came we're here in the United States, but yet when we cross the border and live for a little moment with our family over there and we have to leave them again, obviously, we know we can go back.

We can we can always go back.

And they made sure they got that commitment out of you.

I remember them saying, you make sure you come back.

You're going to come back, right?

Yes.

And then and then when we left, we kind of we had that when we had that feeling of leaving our home there, too, because we have to for the one thing she said was we our home is in both places, but it kind of separates because we don't we know we can come back, but we know our parents aren't able to.

And that's how they felt leaving their parents.

And for my parents, it's been 24 years that they haven't seen their parents.

Now, I can't imagine not being to see my parents for 20 plus years.

Yeah, Yeah.

As though I mean, this is a tough question, but I want you to handle it as grandparents pass away, which they do.

What is the impact on the on your on your parents and and on family.

And it won't just be grandparents, but, you know, time passes.

How do you approach that?

And did this film help you cope with that, do you think, in the future or what's your take away on that?

Well, my dad I'm going to start off with my dad because my great grandpa is the one who passed.

He has he has always said that growing up, he's always been around people who have passed.

So when when my great grandmother passed, he was so strong about it.

Like he I know he felt a certain type of way, but we never really saw him.

I think there was actually like once or twice that I did see him like shed a couple of tears and we have cried together as well, obviously in silent, but Right.

Showing the clips and yeah, I don't I don't think it's I don't think that's something that one will ever be prepared for.

I, I look at I can watch the film over and over again and that scene of me and my great grandpa will always be like in my head, it will always I always feel like I'm reliving it.

And when I went back, it was bittersweet because I was able to see the family that was left.

But obviously he wasn't there anymore.

But I don't I don't think I'll ever be prepared to lose another another grandparent.

Yeah, Yeah.

And especially your parents too, as they as this time passes and then inevitably happens, you know, having to experience that separation really just seems very difficult.

And it does for, you know, how many how many tens of thousands of families here, especially in the western United States.

Seth, here in our last minute 20, how can people see this film?

What's next for this film?

What can how do you want people to engage?

Go ahead.

Great.

There's a website which is first time home film dot org, maybe dot com.

I think dot org that has information about the directors and producers and editors and musicians and what the film is trying to do and links to some other organizations that people can support their organizations.

In the Pacific Northwest, there's Familia Sunni, that's Por la justicia, there's Picon PCU and in Oregon there's the United Farm Workers there.

There are groups that work to support.

There's the binational Center that's an indigenous center between Oaxaca and the US, especially California.

But they're different organizations people can support.

If people are teachers or doctors or nurses or social workers, they can pay extra attention to farmworker families who feed the whole society and to indigenous immigrants who they might not be paying attention to.

And I think all of that is wonderful.

The film's won several awards, which were honored by and were thrilled that it's showing on Etsy.

Great conversation.

Thanks, all of you for coming in Northwest now and congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There's a lot to unpack when it comes to our cross-border relationship with Mexico.

The bottom line first time home starts and ends with the concept of family and keeping that idea in mind as we debate immigration and labor policy probably isn't a bad idea.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking to watch this program again or to share it with others.

Northwest Down can be found on the web at kbtc.org.

And be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Northwest.

Now a streamable podcast of this program is available under the northwest now tab at kbtc.org and on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

That's going to do it for this edition of Northwest Now until Next Time.

I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.