October 22, 1999
Barbara Martinez-Jitner, Producer
of Gregory Nava's documentary The American Tapestry, lived in
Tijuana in one of the shanty towns that have sprung up around
the Maquiladora factories sparked by NAFTA. She lived in a makeshift
shack with Eva Canseco, a Mixtec Indian factory worker from Oaxaca
and her family. She posed as a Maquiladora worker and even documented
Eva's preparation for her attempt at crossing the border illegally
to create a moving personal look at the crippling poverty and
gender discrimination that forces thousands of women to enter
the U.S. illegally.
This November, Showtime Networks will premiere the last documentary of In The 20th Century, a series films made by famous Hollywood directors like Norman Jewison, Barry Levinson, Robert Zemeckis and Garry Marshall. The last film is director Gregory Nava's The American Tapestry, a look at America's immigrant roots that covers the migrations of Europeans, Blacks, Asians and Latinos into the United States throughout this century. The documentary premieres in November and continues airing throughout December on Showtime.
As Director of the Mexico sequence, Latina filmmaker Barbara Martinez-Jitner immersed herself into the world she was to document by living and working with Eva Canseco, an impoverished factory worker in Tijuana, Mexico. Canseco has hopes of crossing the U.S. border illegally to seek a better life for her family. Martinez-Jitner lived with Eva and her husband and three children in a makeshift shack with no electricity and running water for weeks. The Cansecos eke out a meager existence on Eva's wages at a Maquiladora. Eva is the only breadwinner since the factories will only hire women because they can pay them less money and are less apt to complain. Posing as a factory worker herself, Martinez-Jitner uncovered a dark world of grueling poverty and abuse. Japanese and American companies taking advantage of the cheap labor by employing mostly women to assemble electronics or other products.
After being fired on her 30th birthday, Eva Canseco makes the painful decision to leave her family and make a break for the U.S. But before she leaves, Canseco must return to her homeland in the southern Mexican State of Oaxaca. She returns to her ancestral land to visit her mother's grave, seeking a blessing for she must now commit the horrible act of abandoning her children in order to provide for them a better life. Canseco's family was forced to move to Tijuana to find jobs to pay for new land taxes the Mexican government had imposed. "As we leave, our culture is erased," says Canseco from the Mixtec ruins of Monte Alban. "My village and my people will be forgotten and lost for all time."
In addition to Producer of The American Tapestry, Barbara Martinez-Jitner also received Director credit for the Mexico Sequence and was also Co-Director of Photography. Martinez-Jitner was 2nd Unit Director and Visual Effects Production Supervisor of Warner Bros' Selena and Why Do Fools Fall in Love. She began her career as an award-winning director of El Teatro Campesino and documented Cesar Chavez's 36-day Fast For Life.
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