Latino Public Broadcasting Premieres Online Programming During Hispanic Heritage Month

Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) will premiere new online short films on PBS.org as part of its celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.Frontera! REVOLT and Rebellion on the Rio Grande is an animated short from award-winning Chicano media artist John Jota Leaños and the three-part New American Girls

profiles three "DREAMers," part of the estimated 1.8 million young adults brought to theU.S. as children by undocumented parents who remain stuck in limbo, without a pathway to citizenship. These new shorts will be available for online viewing onSeptember 15 at http://www.pbs.org/specials/hispanic-heritage-month/.

John Jota Leaños' unconventional Frontera! uses humor, hip hop and comic book style animation to tell the fascinating story of the Pueblo REVOLT of 1680. After years of drought, hunger, colonial violence and religious persecution brought the indigenous societies of New Mexico to the brink of collapse, the Pueblopeople orchestrated the unthinkable: a pan-Indian uprising that successfully expelled the Spanish occupiers from the entire Rio Grande region and led to an indigenous cultural and social renaissance. Told through the diverse voices, aesthetic sensibilities, and storytelling talent of established Pueblo Indian and Chicana/o artists, Frontera! is a wildly original look at the history of the deeply contested US-Mexico borderlands.

New American Girls, produced by Mitchell Teplitsky and Betty Bastidas, profiles three remarkable young women raised and educated in the U.S. who are aiming for careers in medicine, law and education. Brought here as young children by undocumented parents, they can't work legally and even risk deportation. Mandeep, Lorella and Kassandra are three of the thousands of DREAMers who have come forward with their stories. Their actions helped push forward the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2012, enabling thousands to receive temporary two-year work permits and deferrals from deportation. But as the clock ticks down, their futures remains uncertain.

Mandeep was brought to the Bay Area as a child by her Indian parents. In her second year in the honors pre-med program at UC Davis, she was suddenly informed that she was being deported in two weeks. Through a viral social media campaign led by her best friend, Mandeep's deportation was put on hold and she became an eloquent spokesperson for the burgeoning DREAM movement.

Born in Peru, Lorella lost her leg in a car accident and her parents brought her to theUnited States for medical treatment. When she was ten, Lorella and her mother moved to Connecticut, where she excelled at school but, as an undocumented immigrant, did not quality for in-state college tuition. Lorella became an activist for the DREAM movement, was instrumental in changing Connecticut's in-state tuition rule, and is now director of advocacy and policy for the United We Dream Network.

Kassandra was brought from Mexico to New York City with her family as a child. A promising student, she graduated from Flushing High School, now attends ManhattanCommunity College and has become involved in DREAM Act advocacy with Make the Road New York, an immigrants rights group.

In addition to these online premieres, several recent LPB-funded programs will air on public television stations during Hispanic Heritage Month including the acclaimed seriesThe Latino Americans; Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle; Rebel; the Independent Lensfilms Precious Knowledge, The Graduates and The State Of Arizona; and the POV filmReportero (check local listings).

To post a comment, you must register and login.