About Me
I am an immigrant documentary media maker and educator.
My work focuses on immigration, co-creation, and Freirean praxis.
Projects
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Article for UPenn’s Center on Digital Culture and Society: “Invited and Implicated: Toward Critical Reflexivity in Non-fiction VR”
by Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz & Liz Miller Originally published in The Digital Radical, a publication of the Center on Digital Culture and Society at The…
How to Tell A True Immigrant Story
Director, 360º Documentary
In performative, poetic tapestry, a Latinx community in New York responds to racial profiling, ICE surveillance, constrictions of the “immigrant” label, and documentary's complicity.
In performative, poetic tapestry, a Latinx community in New York responds to racial profiling, ICE surveillance, constrictions of the “immigrant” label, and documentary's complicity.
Presente Saratoga
Co-Director, Multimedia Documentary Performance
A co-created performance ethnography to bring into dialogue two segregated communities while requiring audiences to embody the experience of navigating the norms and expectations of defamiliarized spaces.
A co-created performance ethnography to bring into dialogue two segregated communities while requiring audiences to embody the experience of navigating the norms and expectations of defamiliarized spaces.
Ele
Co-Director, 360º Documentary
A young man from Oaxaca, Mexico relfects on creating possibilities for himself and his indigenous Triqui community in the United States.
A young man from Oaxaca, Mexico relfects on creating possibilities for himself and his indigenous Triqui community in the United States.
City Harvest Documentary: A Collaboration with Digital Editing Students
Producer & Editing Supervisor
A collaboration between my Digital Editing class and Termite TV Collective to log and edit Deb Rudman's newest City Harvest documentary.
A collaboration between my Digital Editing class and Termite TV Collective to log and edit Deb Rudman's newest City Harvest documentary.
Abuelito Fue Bracero
Director, Community-Based, Multi-Platform Collaboration
Collaboration with Luis Magaña & 67 Sueños to preserve stories of former Bracero farmworkers in Stockton, California while investigating ways in which Bracero histories inform today's US-Mexico immigration policies.
Collaboration with Luis Magaña & 67 Sueños to preserve stories of former Bracero farmworkers in Stockton, California while investigating ways in which Bracero histories inform today's US-Mexico immigration policies.
Cómo Vivimos / How We Live
Director, Documentary-in-Progress
In California’s Central Valley, tucked between the county jail and the shooting range, live, love, and strive 100 farmworking families at the Artesi II Migrant Family Housing Center. Until December, that is, when they’re asked to leave.
In California’s Central Valley, tucked between the county jail and the shooting range, live, love, and strive 100 farmworking families at the Artesi II Migrant Family Housing Center. Until December, that is, when they’re asked to leave.
Gentrification in Allentown: Collaboration between Documentary Class & Community Partners
Co-Director, Community- and Classroom-Based Documentary
In the fall of 2018, my Intro to Documentary class partnered with Allentown Coalition for Economic Dignity, artist Drew Swedberg, and Assessment and Outreach Librarian, Jess Denke, to provide community-based perspectives of Allentown gentrification.
In the fall of 2018, my Intro to Documentary class partnered with Allentown Coalition for Economic Dignity, artist Drew Swedberg, and Assessment and Outreach Librarian, Jess Denke, to provide community-based perspectives of Allentown gentrification.
Us in Pieces: from 7Sides (on Cyrus Cylinder)
Director, Documentary Short Collection
7 Iranian filmmakers from around the world reflect on history, identity, and nation-state.
7 Iranian filmmakers from around the world reflect on history, identity, and nation-state.
Inheritance
Director, Documentary Short
A lyrical memoir about diaspora, memory, and the relationship between political and personal tremors.
A lyrical memoir about diaspora, memory, and the relationship between political and personal tremors.
La Casa de Mamá Icha
Co-Producer, Feature-Length Documentary
After 30+ years living in the U.S., 93-year-old Maria Dionisia Navarro decides to return to Colombia and live in the home she built there with remittances. Directed by Colombian filmmaker Oscar Molina.
After 30+ years living in the U.S., 93-year-old Maria Dionisia Navarro decides to return to Colombia and live in the home she built there with remittances. Directed by Colombian filmmaker Oscar Molina.
Review of Video Series, “The Fruit of Our Labour” for Reorient Mag
It starts, as many great films do, with a black screen; then, a flicker. Through snatches of light, a woman is revealed, a headscarf tied at her neck, her body leaning over a table to light a kerosene lantern.
Border Crossing and Genre Bending: A Conversation with Jesikah Maria Ross
There may be no image better equipped to illustrate Jesikah Maria Ross's body of work than that of a bridge. In an era of constant flux in which once-stable disciplinary borders are shifting, a bridge might be exactly the technology we need for treading unstable ground.
Op-Ed: “Stronger Together: Why We Need a National Youth Media Network”
Since its inception three decades ago, the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) serves as a facilitator of, and supporting mechanism for the work of the independent media arts. Through collaboration and dialogue with our national community of members, we design programming that fosters and fortifies the field and provides space for independent voices and diverse perspectives to flourish.
Community and Self-Care in Documentary Work
Around 4am on the morning of December 12, 2016, nearly 30 men, women and children were swaddling themselves in their warmest winter shawls, preparing hot beans and hot cocoa, and scooping up candles, toddlers, and guitars to step out into the Central Valley pre-dawn frost to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe.
In a City Where 15 Percent of Voters Elected the Mayor, Downtown Is Claiming Power
In 1984, Sydney ‘Trek’ Mckenzie’s middle school class assembled to listen to Geraldine Ferraro, a vice presidential candidate, speak to a crowd in Allentown, Pennsylvania. This simple class trip, organized by Mckenzie’s teacher, was a moment that changed his life. It was the moment that he realized the power in politics.
Sample Grant Proposal: Abuelito Fue Bracero Documentary
California produces two-thirds of this country’s fruits and nuts, one-third of its vegetables, and almost 90% of the state’s agricultural labor force is Mexican-born. Luis Magaña was one such farmworker himself, born in Jaripo and moved to the US to work alongside his Bracero father in the Central Valley fields.
The Making of “How to Tell A True Immigrant Story”
Saratoga Springs, according to long-time busker and city dweller Thomas Nosal, is a magical, mysterious, bubbling spring of activity. People travel from miles away to luxuriate in a Saratoga summer with its lush greens and its mineral springs and its thoroughbred, racing horses.
Children of Farmworkers in California’s Central Valley Face Annual Academic Disruptions
In the summer of his junior year, Luis Miguel was struggling to stay in high school. He and his family of four – who work various agricultural jobs from picking blueberries and cherries to pruning grapes and canning tomatoes – live in one of California’s 24 migrant family housing centers.
Teaching
“What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.” (Paolo Freire)
