New documentary showcases hardships of migrant children
By
KGNS News
Story Created:
Jun 23, 2011
Story Updated:
Jun 24, 2011
They are the ones who do the hard work of picking the crops most of us will find on our kitchen table, and one filmmaker wants others to know that it's not only adults spending hours out in the hot sun harvesting fruits and vegetables.
Children, 400,000 of them, will migrate to fields across the country each year, including many from Laredo.
She is one of the estimated 400,000 children spending hour-after-hour in the hot sun each year, picking the fruits and vegetables that will feed Americans, UISD student Zulema Lopez, one of four children featured in the new documentary "The Harvest/La Cosecha,” a film created by U. Roberto Romano to unveil the truth about migrant farm workers.
Zulema began working the field when she was about seven years old, an effort to help her mother.
Children like her leave school early each year and return late the next moving across the country with their families over the summer. It’s estimated two out of every three migrant children will drop out of high school.
Programs like this one held at UISD are aimed at keeping kids interested in school and aimed at giving their parents options.
Romano was part of Thursday’s migrant student science fair spreading his message hoping moms and dads will tell other fellow migrant parents about opportunities for their kids.
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