Morristown:
in the air and sun

The following questions were developed as a guide for discussion among youth in Appalachian Kentucky. Please let us know if these are helpful, suggested additions for other audiences, and any further ideas.

1.  Do you know people who lost their jobs in factories?  What reason were they given for the lay off?  Do you believe this is true?

2.  Have you seen migrant workers in your community?  What was your reaction?

3.  The film talks about the relationship between factory lay offs and immigration.  Would you like to discuss this further?

4.  Shirley compares Mexican migrants to Appalachian migrants to northern cities who undercut local wages.  Is this part of your family's history?

5.  You could substitute "hillbilly" or "black" for the "they" in Berkeley Bell's statement.  Are those common stereotypes?

6.  Mike Whalen suggests that if we have "free trade" with Mexico, then people also should be able to cross the border freely -- similar to the European Common Market.  What do you think?

7.  How do you feel about the workers' right to organize as a response to the global economy?  Would you support an organizing drive in your community?

8. To connect the film to the current immigration bill, you could discuss the relationships of legality and guest worker programs to exploitation of workers.  What about the worker’s families (think of the 15-year-old girl in Guanajuato)?  Finally, you could talk about national responsibility as leaders in the global economy.

9.  Does the film encourage your participation in any concrete ways towards making things better for workers of all ethnicities, races, and nationalities?

A few further notes:

For more about Shirley and Luvernel's trip to Mexico, there's a short film "From the Mountains to the Maquiladoras" distributed by Highlander.

The buckets of green tomatoes weighed at least 30 pounds each.  The men who caught the buckets put a chip in each empty bucket and threw it back.  Each chip was worth 40 cents.