@article{1355779,
      recid = {1355779},
      author = {Hill, Cynthia. and Thompson, Charles.},
      title = {The guestworker [electronic resource] /},
      publisher = {Filmakers Library,},
      address = {New York, NY :},
      pages = {1 online resource (53 min.).},
      year = {2006},
      note = {Originally released as DVD.},
      abstract = {When President Bush and some members of Congress proposed  guest worker programs as part of new immigration reform  legislation, it was as though nothing like this had existed  before. Yet since 1986, thousands of Mexican men have  legally entered the United States to work here, because of  the little known H-2A guestworker program, put in effect  during the Reagan years. Filmed on both sides of the  border, the documentary chronicles the life of such farm-  workers while looking at the issues surrounding the  program. The film focuses on a 66-year-old Mexican farmer,  Candelario Moreno Gonzales, who works on the tobacco,  cucumber and pepper fields of the Western Farms in North  Carolina . He has made this annual trip for forty years,  initially as an undocumented immigrant for which he was  jailed three times. Now too old to risk illegal crossings,  he has paid as much as a thousand dollars for his bus fare  and other costs of participating in the program. Although  he is twenty years older than most of his fellow workers,  he puts in the same grueling hours with no hope of  citizenship and the benefits that go along with it. The  film also shows the troubles of his employer, Len Wester,  who may loose his farm because of drought. Wester, like  many US farmers, is dependent on foreign farm laborers to  sustain his farm. Candelario loves his home and family but  the deteriorating condition of Mexico s rural economy leave  him little choice but to continue his yearly trek. As he  says " I need to go as long as I can work. I m old. The  work has worn me down and made me tired. My family needs me  at home in Mexico, but I need to be here too".},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1355779},
}