Frontline: New Harvest, Old Shame

Thirty years after the broadcast of Edward R. Murrow's landmark investigative documentary Harvest of Shame, which chronicled the plight of migrant farm workers in America, the Frontline crew revisited Southern Florida to find out whether the reforms that followed hard on the heels of 1960's Harvest have rectified the injustices Murrow found three decades ago. Focusing on the Silva's, a migrant farm worker family, the program follows the disastrous harvest in Indiana, which left Pedro Silva and his family far short of their expected earnings for the summer, to Southern Florida where, after an expensive and exhausting journey, the Silvas finally arrive to pick tomatoes during the winter. By program's end, Pedro is trying to earn spare money by collecting and selling scrap metal. In the larger scope of the documentary, the filmmakers examine the influence of Guatemalan illegal immigrants on the farm workers' trade, the continued pressure from labor unions to provide for farm workers the basic benefits that virtually anyone else working in America is entitled to, and the characteristic ignorance of the governmental regulatory body--in this case, the Department of Agriculture--as to both the nature and extent of the problems. An eye-opener, unfortunately priced beyond the reach of most public libraries, but highly recommended for those who can afford it. (See DISCOVERING HAMLET for availability.)