By Vanessa Colón
04-14-2008
Five Fresno high school students shot their final piece of film Sunday for a documentary that tells the story of different ethnic groups in the Valley and their relationship to agriculture and one another.
"Common Ground: Sowing Seeds of Understanding in the San Joaquin Valley" is one of only eight youth films in the state commissioned by the California Council for the Humanities in 2007.
The intent of the film is to explore the history of the interaction of different ethnic groups in the Valley. Through the project, students also gained technology skills and learned local history through three families, including the Arenas family who generations ago began as migrant workers but now own a 40-acre ranch in Del Rey.
"It's a real honor. It's not very often young people are commissioned to make a professional film," said Brandon Wright, project director of the film and deputy director of the Center for Multicultural Cooperation, a nonprofit organization that uses media and technology.
"Common Ground" is sponsored by the center. The organization received $30,000 to produce the film at a studio inside Fresno's Veterans Memorial building at Fresno and O streets. Denise Blume, associate professor of education at California State University, Fresno, has helped the students produce the film.
The documentary is 30 minutes long and features the histories of black, Hispanic and Hmong farmers and farmworkers. "Common Ground" also includes the effects of the citrus freeze in the early 1990s on the town of Lindsay. The subjects of the documentary are the Arenas family in Del Rey, the Wells family in rural west Fresno and the Her family in Clovis. The film will be screened in Fresno this summer.
On Sunday, the five students learned that the Arenas family struggled to keep their 40-acre ranch in the 1960s when there were few Hispanic farmers. Rosie Arenas, daughter of the ranch owners, said all her neighbors were from different ethnic groups but they established strong friendships and helped each other in difficult times.
Arenas, an assistant professor of education at Fresno State, said during the holidays, her family would give tamales to their Japanese American and German American neighbors. They, in turn, gave them sticky rice with fish and German cookies, she said.
"People would help each other," Arenas said.
Maricela Hernandez, 18, of Sunnyside High School, said she was astonished that years ago the Arenases lived in an area that looked like the United Nations.
"It was amazing how they got along. They shared crops and traded off with each other," Hernandez said.
Hernandez said her involvement in the film motivated her to raise her grades from B's and C's to more A's and B's.
Lilian Vang, 17, of McLane High School said she got great hands-on training to create documentaries and in the process got an education on Valley history.
"I didn't think the Central Valley contributed so much to the state. It's something new I learned through this project."
The reporter can be reached at vcolon@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6313.
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