Latino: A Cultural Conflict

Duration: 600

Year Published: 1971

Creator: Oxford Films (OXF)

Complete Record: Street scenes and head shots of young Latino children. Voice over tells us Latinos have a high rate of unemployment and crime. Stills are used to illustrate headlines. Opening credits feature still photographs and Spanish Guitar. A teenager from El Salvador talks to camera with San Francisco in the background. Panning shot across the city. Views of run down housing and slums. San Francisco Unified School District. Scenes in a classroom. Voice over from a bilingual teacher, explaining why the immigrants have a difficult time assimilating into American society. Cut with classroom, playground and still photographs. Children interacting with each other and teachers in the playground. More still photos of Latino children. Close up of a cross on a church steeple. People walking down the steps of a church. Latino students turning to look at the camera in class rooms. Panning shot across the rooftops of the Mission District in San Francisco (10-15 seconds). Kids playing soccer on a concrete soccer field/court. A kid explains why he wants to get out of the Mission. Views of a construction site. Views of a Juvenile Court Guidance Center. Close up of a San Francisco Chronicle headline saying ‘Mission is Impossible’. Brief shot of a kid playing on a street that is recognizably in the Mission District. A kid plays on the construction site, by a digger. Sail boats move back and forth across a lake. The kid who said he wanted to get out of the Mission goes sailing. CU shots of him sailing the boat. He describes his enjoyment of this in voice over. The construction site in the Mission is superimposed over him in the sail boat, on the lake. CU of someone rolling a marijuana cigarette. Using a little rolling machine. Lasts about a minute. He passes the joint across to someone behind the camera. Workmen digging up a street. Views of shops signs in the Mission. More shots of a construction site. Moody scenes of a Latino youth walking around places we’ve seen in the Mission, cut with photographs and the sound of a clock ticking ominously.