Who We Are ¿?

Hey Everyone,

We are The Border Stompers Collective, an all student led media organization at UCSC.

The purpose of this organization is to document U.S. and Latin American relations and raise awareness of minority groups in the Americas.

But it gets more complicated than that.

Its a question of perspective. Of points of view. Of differences.

What are the Americas? A mining town in Northern Chile, a coffee collective in Costa Rica, or a strawberry town on the Central Coast of California.... All of them, none of them, some

of them... ¿?

The Border Stompers Project

This project started during the Fall of 2008, when the first wave of Border Stompers met to discuss a possible documentary idea... something about Oaxaca... US policy... neoliberalism ...etc..etc..

But we needed money. Money amid an economic recession (at the time) and an institution facing incredible budget cuts. Yet, we were able to fundraise (albeit sweat and tears) around $7,000 of the green ones to travel with Witness for Peace to the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.

And so the project started.

Our main goal was to formulate a space where "students of color" would have access to media outlets. We focused on film (documentaries), photography (photos), and print media (we featured an article in CHP). We wanted to bring more diversity to the Press Center, and train students in media-making.

So we went to Oaxaca for a week. Took lots of pictures. Held numerous interviews with NGOs. Sleep 4 hours daily. Saw the sunrise on top of the Fortin Hill. Recorded it for 4 hours to discover that the final product was unusable. Faced the politics of the time. Traveled to a small "sustainable" community on the countryside. San Juan Sosola. Feel in love with the people, the community, little Jesus, Don Arcadio, Dona Luisa. Went back to the city. Had limpias done. Delievered messages to President Obama and Calderon. Visited an young artists collective. Read lots of local newspapers. And many other things. But then we had to pack and come back.

We worked all Spring quarter on our documentary. Had a final presentation were we screened our first rough cut of the documentary. Not the final copy, of course. The documentary continues to be edited.

Finally, I want to open an invitation to ANY student at UCSC who has an interest in student media and has a slight idea of the geopolitical difference between North/Central/South America and Latin America. That is aware that Mexico is part of North America. Who has a remote feeling, a little gut feeling, that novelas are not all there is to TV. In the end, someone who is at least on the path of wanting to maybe and perhaps become (more) conscious on issues pertaining to the Americas (whatever that means).

Love,

Ale

PS We are multi-lingual (so far, only Spanish and English).