Deportation and Immigration: The Peril and The Promise

FILM AND "TALK SHOW" Q and A with filmmaker Ray Telles. Fruitvale youth and elders share their experiences of the immigration justice system, plus audience "feelback."

The series, funded by the American Library Assoc and the National Endowment for the Humanities, is one of 200 projects nationwide. It's a year long tribute to Latino American culture, acknowledging the growing Latino demographic and influence in the US. Oakland's Fruitvale is the barrio of Oakland with a majority of Latino residents and a strong Latino identity, amidst the dazzling diversity of the district. Peralta Hacienda is the Birthplace of Oakland where the Peraltas built their adobe in 1821 on their 45,000-acre cattle ranch.

LATINO AMERICANS is a landmark three-part, six-hour documentary series that is set to air nationally on PBS in the fall of 2013.

It is the first major documentary series for television to chronicle the rich and varied history and experiences of Latinos, who have helped shape the United States over the last 500-plus years and have become, with more than 50 million people, the largest minority group in the U.S.

Immigration is at the heart of the American experience, and a central part of the long-running democratic experiment that is the United States. So it is that our series intersects much that is central to the history of the United States. The story includes expansionism, Manifest Destiny, the Wild West, multiple wars (Mexican-American, Spanish-American, World War II), the rise of organized labor, the Great Depression, the post WWII boom, the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, globalization, and the effects of multiple kinds of technologies - from the railroad and barbed wire to the internet and satellite television.

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