Price of Sugar movie discussion guide

 

printable discussion guide here. 

Location

Los Llanos, Dominican Republic, and the nearby plantations. (Capital city is Santa Domingo.)

The DR shares an island with the country of Haiti.

Hartley served as priest 1997-2006; documentary was filmed 2004-2006.

Word Bank

Bateyes: sugar plantation

Buscones: slave merchant, recruiter, human trafficking, lured, steal documents or ID, 20,000 new crossings a year

Parish: a Catholic division of land and responsibility. Priests are assigned to a parish, parishioners attend services at their location parish church. 

Mass: Catholic worship service

Characters

Father Christopher Hartley : Catholic priest. wealthy, powerful Spanish/British family 20 years working for Mother Theresa, learned to love the poor, solidarity. (Unfortunately, by the time the documentary was produced, Hartley’s bishop asked him to leave. He has continued to advocate for the bateyes)

The Vicini Family: own sugar plantations, banks. Large political control

Father Pedro Ruquoy:  Belgium priest helped 30 years, assaulted 

Mr. Merité: head guard 

History of Slavery and Sugar

1492: Christopher Columbus claims Haiti for Spain.

1600s: Haiti is the center of the slave trade: importing 40,000 slaves per year. Produces most 

of the world’s coffee and sugar. 

1665: Haiti ceded to France

1793: Slavery (legally) ends in Haiti after 13 year revolution.

1804: Haiti declares independence (but spends 100 years paying off reparations to France.)

1844: The Dominican Republic declares itself independent from Haiti.

1916-24: US occupation of the DR. 

1930s: Haitians worked cutting cane in the DR as a temporary, seasonal job.

1990s: international attention of poor working conditions leads DR government to begin 

expelling Haitian workers.

Current Sugar Production

Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world, marked by violence and government corruption.

Haiti has a 40% unemployment rate. Buscones tell Haitians they can move to the DR, get good jobs, and send money home to their families. (These are lies.)

In 2006, there were approximately 1 million Haitians in the DR, with possibly hundreds of thousands living on bateyes. 

The United States buys most of the sugar cane, due to a trade agreement with the DR.

Plantation Conditions

• Can’t afford shoes or education
• $0.90 a day, paid in voucher for company store
• Not enough food, worker and children chew cane for calories
• Unsanitary, water, parasites
• Armed guards, can’t leave plantations
• Overcrowding 
• Child labor
• Company has absolute authority (not state or police)
• Rampant AIDS and tuberculosis
• High maternal mortality
• Treatable, preventable diseases
• No care provided for work accidents

Activism

Inclusiveness: Went somewhere he shouldn’t go - first visit to bateyes, part of the parish

Documentation: photography, recording bad conditions

Service: Brought American doctors (taboo)

Investigated: trafficking, recruitment tactics in Haiti

Speaking: Gave public speech at presidential ceremony (January 2000), preaches at church.

Fundraising: money from Spain to make a compound and serve meals on Batey Paloma, later the DR government  gave money to build new homes.

Strike: getting worker to all agree not to work until demands are met. 

• education, religious background (2nd Vatican Council says workers have right to strike)
• 23 batteys strike: demands met, wages told in advance and small raise
• Retaliation: field burned, workers blamed 

Changes: stop beatings, stop carrying guns, built more houses, Workers are allowed to leave batey, but risk arrest (no papers), locals don’t like them. Borders closed to human trafficking

Discussion Questions

• Father Christopher said that the owner of a plantation “would be my best friend if all I did was celebrate mass.” Why did he bother doing more? How did his faith lead him to do more?
• Many Dominicans are supportive and worked for justice. However, the loudest voices were Dominicans who treated their neighbors, the Haitians, poorly. What beliefs or teachings led them to this? In what ways do Americans act similarly to refugees and undocumented immigrants?
• How did colonization harm Haiti and the Dominican Republic? Why has there not been healing even after 200 years of independence? 

Cesar Chavez Movie Guide

 

Printable version here

Locations 

Los Angeles, CA:  Community Service Organization (CSO) offices

Delano, CA: 40 Acres Union office

Sacramento: capital of California

Characters

Cesar Chavez: civil rights leader and labor organizer. His Catholic faith inspired much of his non-violent work. Founded United Farm Workers (UFW) with his wife, Helen. 

Delores Huerta: labor organizer, lead negotiator in the workers' contract after the strike

Larry Itliong: Filipino organizer of AWOC, later combined with UFW.

Fred Ross: had worked for Saul Alinsky, Chicago community organizer, founded CSO in LA in 1948

Jerry Cohen: UFW lawyer, protested Vietnam

Robert Kennedy: New York Senator, Attorney General to President John F Kennedy. Supported the Civil Rights Movement. Assassinated in 1968.

Mr. Bogdanovich: Fictional farm owner. Immigrant who built his own business

Governor Ronald Reagan: of California. Didn’t support strikes or workers, later a US President

President Richard Nixon: makes deals to support farm owners to break boycott

Dates

1834 “Mill Girls” textile workers protest wage cuts

1867 Chinese immigrant railroad workers strike, owners starve them out

1877 Irish immigrant coal miners protest, 19 hanged 

1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 150 workers

1935 National Labor Relations Act: gives workers the right to unionize. (Doesn’t include 

        farm workers.)

1938:         Fair Labor Standards Act: Child Labor Laws

1950s         Chavez does training with CSO, registers laborers to vote

1962 Chavez moves family from LA to Delano, starts United Farm Workers

1965 Filipino work camp strike, the two movements join together

1966 Pilgrimage 340 miles to state capital, Sacramento

1968 Chavez fasts 25 day for nonviolence

1970 growers sign agreements to end boycott and five year strike

1975 Agriculture Labor Relations Act gives farm workers right to organize

Farm Labor Injustices

no minimum wage, no bathrooms, paying for water. child labor, goal: keep people uneducated

hard labor hurts the body, no health insurance or disability pay. life expectancy: 49 years, no safety protections. Many big farms are dependent on undocumented labor: owners don’t have to provide the same human rights as to US Citizens. 

 

Spanish

Si se puede! Yes, we can!

Huelga: strike 

La Causa: the Cause 

Non-Violence Strategies

Unions: bringing people together empowers them. fights for safety, reasonable hours and wages

Credit Union: Many poor people don’t have bank accounts, opportunity for small loans. 

Union Newspaper: educating people, helping them know their rights, sending info about events and strikes. Cartoons help people who can’t read see new ideas.

Strike: Workers refuse to work. Historically, the police have helped owners by arresting workers

Boycott: getting the large community to refuse to buy a product.

Fasting: like Jesus and Gandhi, Chavez fasted from food. He did it mostly to inspire his own followers to commit to non-violence. Got national attention. He broke his fast with communion (Catholic/Christian ritual of bread and wine to remember Jesus’ body and blood)

Pilgrimage: Chavez utilized his religious tradition to make their march a pilgrimage. Historically, Catholics would walk hundreds of miles to visit a holy site and seek God. 

US Justice System

Police overlooked owners or locals harming strikers, favored the rich and powerful. Intimidation, violence, arresting without a crime. Judges and lawyers make rules against workers’ rights. 

Slurs

beaner: anti-Mexican slur insulting a main type of food.

greaser: 1950s insult, maybe referred to the job of greasing axels. 

wetback: slur for immigrants who recently swam across the Rio Grande

spic: uncertain origins, overlaps with anti-Italian insults.

brown n*****: compares Latinx to another despised people group

illegals: undocumented immigrants, dehumanizes people to focus on a minor crime

Discussion Questions

1. A rich farm owner says, “The farm workers chose this life. If it wasn’t good enough, they could go get a different job.” What hurdles did the farm workers face that made this untrue? Can minimum wage workers today easily get better jobs?
2. Farm and other US industries still run on undocumented labor today to maximize profits. Many people blame the immigrants for crossing the border and for working for low wages. How can we solve these problems?
3. Cesar Chavez incorporated his faith in his activism. How can your work be inspired by faith?

Selma Movie Guide

 

printable version here

Location 

Selma, Alabama march to Montgomery (state capital): five days, 50 miles.

Washington, DC: US Capital where the House and Senate vote on new laws, President rejects or approves.

Characters 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Baptist pastor and civil rights activist. Powerful speaker and strategic leader of the civil rights movement. His team of clergy and others made up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). They selected issues and planned marches, protests, boycotts.

Coretta Scott King: Martin’s wife. This movie downplays her activism and role in the Civil Rights movement. Raised their four children who are all activists today. Coretta is used in this movie to show King’s imperfections, and the problems of having a single hero leader.

John Lewis: student activist with The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). later served in the House 33 years. Passed away in 2020.

President Lyndon B Johnson: is pressured by King’s fame and growing popularity to pass civil rights laws.

Malcolm X: radical activist, considered to be the scary alternative to King’s peaceful protest. But, they agreed more than they disagreed. Muslim minister, assassinated in 1965.

J Edgar Hoover: ran the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Spies on King, tries to discredit him.

Sheriff Jim Clark: of Selma, bully. an elected county official. 

Governor George Wallace: of Alabama, complains that black people always want more. Makes excuses and won’t take responsibility. 

White Clergy: Christian pastors and Jewish rabbis, Catholic nuns and more join in support. But other white clergy ignored the issue, or even preached in churches and wrote to King telling him he needed to calm down. (King responded with “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”)

Dates 

1619 Slavery begins in the American Colonies

1861 American Civil War fought over slavery 

1863 Slavery ends with the Emancipation Proclamation, and 13th Amendment.

        Reconstruction in the South leads to Jim Crow

1870 15th Amendment gives voting rights all men

1954 Brown vs Board of Education: begins the end of segregation in schools

1956 Montgomery Bus Boycotts (Rosa Parks)

1961 Freedom Riders

1963 Birmingham Campaign for integration

        16th Street Baptist Church bombing kills 4 little girls in Birmingham AL

1964 Civil Rights Act begins the end of segregation

        King awarded Nobel Peace Prize

1965 March 7: Bloody Sunday

        March 21: Selma March completed

        August 6: Voting Rights Act

1968 King assassinated

2013 Voting Rights Act gutted

Racial Slurs

Negro is not a slur at the time. (Black or African American become preferred terms later.) 

N*****, Nigra: the root of these words is simply “black,” but the meaning evolved and is used to remind people, “We are different. I used to own you.” 

Pickaninny: refers to little slave children picking cotton

Mongrel: a description of dogs with mixed parentage, used to describe people of mixed race, dehumanizing. Wallace says blacks voting will cause “mongrel politics.”

Confederate Flag: a minor symbol from the American Civil War, brought into popularity during Jim Crow. A flag shows what side you’re on.

Uncle Tom: a black person who supports oppression 

Spook: slur for a black person, implying that they are scary and able to hide in the dark.

White Trash, Cracker: insult to poor white people. A lot of American racism keeps poor white people fighting with poor black people instead of together standing up to the rich and powerful. 

Jim Crow Laws

Segregation: keeping black and white people separate in public. schools, bathrooms, drinking fountains, restaurants, buses, building entrances.

Voting: poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, doxxing, voting vouchers

Legal injustices: lynching, police brutality, execution, unfair prison sentences, slavery continues in prison. 

Nonviolent Resistance and Civil Disobedience

Jesus suggests peaceful resistance in Matthew 5:38-42. He was later executed by the state. Henry David Thoreau wrote “Civil Disobedience” in 1849. Gandhi was an early practitioner of nonviolent resistance as he spoke out against England’s colonial occupation of India in the 1940s. Nelson Mandela modeled the same practices against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s.. 

Strategies: collective action, marches, protests, boycotts, sit-ins, civil action, hunger strikes, refusal to obey unjust laws, labor strikes, placing one's body in the way of being harmed, imprisoned, or killed.

Discussion: 

1. Many indirect strategies stopped black people from their legal right to vote. What strategies are used today to limit voting rights? How can we ensure the right to vote? 

2. King was a widely hated figure at the time. He was called violent and provocative. He broke the law and was jailed 29 times. Many Christians told him to obey the law. What do you think?

3. The civil rights leaders used peaceful resistance as a strategy. Why was it successful? In what ways was it not successful?  Why are people still critical of peaceful protests today?

Fiddler on the Roof: Notes and Discussion Guide

printable version here

 Location 

Anatevka, Russia, in 1905: a small Jewish fictional village, located somewhere in the Pale of Settlement. (Jews weren’t allowed past those borders.)

Russia is ruled by Czar Nicholas II (Romanov dynasty) 

Characters 

All the characters in this story are fictional but based on stories of the time. 

Tevye: father, patriarch, milkman. He has a chatty and open relationship with God. 

Golde: his wife. Golde wants her daughters not to live in poverty. 

Tzeitel: oldest daughter, has arranged marriage to rich butcher Lazar, but chooses the poor tailor Motel instead

Hodel: second daughter, marries revolutionary radical Perchik

Chava: third daughter, marries Fyedka, a Christian man, so she is considered dead to family

Constable: Gentile law enforcement of town. He is friendly to Tevye but still looks down on Jews. He follows orders to terrorize and eventually evict the entire Jewish population of their small town. 

Judaism

Over 4,000 year old religion, culture, and people group.

Rabbi: faith leader of a community

Synagogue: meeting house for religious practice

Sabbath: Holy Day of rest. Begins Friday night at sundown and lasts until Saturday night at sundown.

Torah: Holy Book

In this story, there are many traditional gender roles, and community roles like arranged marriage and matchmakers. Touching the opposite gender was inappropriate, and touching gentiles (non-Jews) made you unclean. Some traditional communities still follow these practices.

Anti-semitism: hostility and prejudice against Jews. Russia (and other countries) at this time (and many other times) made anti-Jewish propaganda, and they enacted evictions and pogroms (organized killing of a minority). The pogroms in Russia and around the world culminated in the Holocaust (1941-1945) where 6 million Jews were murdered. 

Eastern Orthodox Christianity

11th Century: Schism with Roman Catholics (doesn’t follow the Catholic Pope.)

Common faith in Eastern Europe and Russia. 

Although they live in the same town as the Jewish characters, the movie shows different music and dance styles as an example of different cultures living side by side. 

Marxism

1848: Karl Marx writes “The Communist Manifesto” about class conflict between workers and business owners. The relationship is inherently exploitative, because the goal of capitalism is to make a profit. Marxism aims for fairness when the workers own the means of production and get rid of class differences. 

The character Perchik went to university in Kiev, where he probably learned these new ideas. He teaches his young students the Rachel and Leah story, and says the moral is “never trust an employer.” Perchik returns to Kiev to protest. He gets arrested Bloody Sunday Massacre, in which the Czar’s troops killed hundreds of unarmed protestors. He is sent to Siberia (central/east Russia, very cold and rural). 

Czar Nicholas made temporary parliament in response to allow changes. He abdicated in 1917 after the February Revolution. In
the same year, after the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks took power. They executed the Czar and his family in 1918. They formed the Soviet Union which lasted from 1922 - 1991. 

Discussion

Do you practice special family or cultural traditions? What are they?

How do you decide which traditions are worth keeping and which should go?

Is the Constable a friend to Tevye? What should people in power do to help the oppressed?

Anti-semitism is at the root of most conspiracy theories. How should Christians fight against this? 

Tevye wishes he could be a rich man; Golde wants her daughters out of poverty. Marxist Perchik thinks the rich are oppressors. How do these ideas conflict, and how could they agree?