Event 1

On November 16, 2016 I watched the 2007 documentary ‘’Made inL. A’’ directed by Almudena Carracedo.

This films follows the journey of three Latina immigrants, Lupe, Maura and Maria, who left their country, family, and everything they had to come to the USA with a hope of a better life for them and their family. These women started working in Los Angeles garment sweatshops. For many years, these women had been working in factories were they were being paid minimum wage and working 12 hours a day in an unsafe environment, but they were afraid to denounce the place because they were all undocumented, and they felt completely powerless.

One day, Lupe decided she would not take any more and went in to the factory to take action. Along with others immigrant workers, they joined the Garment Worker Center(GWC) where they found individuals whose mission was to organize  low-wage garment workers in Los Angeles in the fight for social and economic justice. The resources and their strength kept them going until their voices were heard and they won the case. It was not easy at all but they persisted until they won the fight. They embarked on a three year odyssey to win basic labor protections from trendy clothing retailer Forever 21.

Watching this movie was really emotional for me as an immigrant. I was fortunate to be documented, but I have seen my relatives and people of my community going through the same thing. What gets me the most is that all three of those women spent most of their time working to provide for their children. They barely had time to spend with their children.  The only time these kids seemed to be well supervised was when they were in school.  After school hours if the parents were not home to keep them engaged in their school work and with good company, these children often ended up getting bad grades, getting involved with the wrong crowd, and ending up in the streets. This made me realize how important it is to have an after school program and youth space where the youth have the opportunity to be involved in a positive and educational setting.Most of these women In the documentary are mothers of teenagers, who spent most of their time at work so they could provide for the family. While these parents spent most of their time working, it is very easy for these youth to get in the wrong path if they are not being engaged in after school programs that can help them avoid the streets.  This film connected me to a few characteristics of the youth worker. The first of them is, where possible, young people choose to be involved. It very crucial for each community to have a center where the youth can engage themselves, where they will have chance to spent their time with individual (youth workers) who can make a distinct and positive contribution to the personal and social development of these young people, helping them to stay in the correct path and avoid the streets and crimes.

Another characteristic of youth worker this documentary reminded me of is: Youth work seeks to strengthen the voice and influence of young people. Youth work encourages and enables young people to influence the environment in which they live through the use of educative processes. One example of this is the Garment Worker Center(GWC), which encouraged the minority employees to go out there and fight for their rights; if they wanted to see changes they must demand it. At first those immigrant workers were feeling very powerless and they had to put up with whatever was presented to them, until they found an organization that was willing to help them raise their voice and make sure they are being heard.

The GWC connected me to one of the youth centers I have visited this semester called Youth In Action(YIA). This place encourages youths to use the power they have to promote change. This is very important because it is giving the youths the message that they have power and that they can use them most of the time even if they feel they do not have voices. As Giovanni stated in the Youth In Action article A World Where Youth Hold The Power, “YIA is where you realize that youth have much more power than we’re given credit for. That’s the cognizance that you have when you come here, because your voice really does matter.”  The same happened with the Latinas from the movies where they felt they had been taken advantage of and their human rights were being violated due to their social status as minorities,until they found the organization that helped to raise their voice and made sure they know that their voice really does matter, and if they wanted to see a change, they needed to raise their voice so they can be heard.