In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, THE BORINQUENEERS will be presented on September 30, 2014 at 6:00pm as part of the Americans in Struggle Film Series – Celebrating the struggles of the American people that make us the nation we are today at a Special Venue: the Community College of Philadelphia-CCP’s Bonnell Building Room BG-10. All other films will be screened at the Winnet Student Life Building- Room S 2-3, Philadelphia, PA. Refreshments will be served from 5:30pm. Filmmaker Noemi Figueroa Soulet and 65th veteran SFC William Van Derdys (Ret., US Army Reserve) will be attending this event which is open to the public and free of charge. This program is sponsored by the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, SAG/AFTRA, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Philadelphia AFL-CIO, Coalition of Labor Union Women, Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Reformation, Fight for Philly, AFSCME DC 47, UFCW Local 1776, AFT Local 2026. For more information, please contact 215-557-0822 or email- JDoddsPUP@aol.com.
The films being screened include:
Sept. 16 – Broken on All Sides – Film on race, mass incarceration and new visions for criminal justice, plus Our Schools are not for Sale a short film on the Philadelphia schools. The evening will give insight into the “school to prison pipeline” and how to fight it.
Sept. 30 – The Borinqueneeners– The story of the Puerto Rican 65th Infantry Regiment, the only all-Hispanic unit in U.S. Army history, recently awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Obama. (Special venue-CCP’s Bonnell Building Room BG-10 for Hispanic Heritage Month)
Oct. 14 – Mississippi: Is This America?– This is the 50th Anniversary of Mississippi Freedom Summer, where people from all over America confronted violent racism as they came to work with Black Mississippians to fight the right to vote and be represented in the political process.
Oct. 28 – Brothers on the Line is the award-winning documentary exploring the social justice crusade of the Reuther brothers whose social justice movement, under the banner of the United Auto Workers, helped to transform the landscape of the nation.
Nov. 11 – Paycheck to Paycheck– As the fight for higher wages and a fair minimum wage heats up, this film illuminates the challenges faced by more than 42 million low wage American women and the 28 million children who depend on them.
Nov. 25 – 1971– The story of Philadelphia activists, who in 1971 broke into FBI offices in Media, PA and uncovered the FBI’s vast and illegal regime of spying and intimidation of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.In our current age of Wikileaks and Edward Snowden, this documentary couldn’t be timelier.