1. What is the video all about? Provide a brief summary.

It’s about muckraking documentary about Haitians lured into a form of indentured servitude on
sugar plantations across the border in the Dominican Republic, focuses on the Rev. Christopher
Hartley, a courageous and stubborn Spanish priest who devoted 10 years to bettering their
desperate plight.The movie visits the workers’ shantytowns, known as bateyes, which,
according to the film, resembled forced labor camps patrolled by armed guards before Father
Hartley’s reform movement. Through his organizing and relentless pressuring of the plantation
owners in the face of death threats, some bateyes in his parish now have improved living and
working conditions and have been visited by American doctors. As each year approaches, up to
20,000 Haitian employees are recruited with the promise of steady employment at higher pay
than they can earn in Haiti, the poorer of the two countries, with a promise of steady labor at
higher compensation. These penniless immigrants are put onto trucks, stripped of their
identification papers, and transferred in the middle of the night to the bateyes, where many are
confined in concentration-camp-like barracks, according to the film. The number of illegal
Haitians living in the camps is estimated to be between 650,000 and one million. They work 14
hours a day, seven days a week once harvesting begins, earning less than $1 per day and get
limited to no health care, according to the film. They are compensated in vouchers rather than
cash, which may be redeemed for pricey food at company-owned businesses. Because they
can only afford one meal per day, sugar cane chewing provides the majority of their calories.
Children born in the bateyee are stateless since they are not recognized as Dominican citizens.
Many of the plantations shown are owned by the Vicini family, a dynasty of sugar barons who
refused to be interviewed for the film and sent the filmmakers a cease-and-desist letter in an
attempt to block its release. The United States, which imports much of the Dominican sugar, is
partly culpable, the movie says, because of political contributions from the barons that have
helped maintain the price of imported Dominican sugar at close to double the world price.

2. Does this film teach you lessons? What are these lessons?

- The film taught us that someone must stand up so that it can cause change. I learned in the
film that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The film taught us many lessons, first, one is
to be thankful for what you have, second is you must stand up for others who can’t so that you
can let others know what they’re fighting for. The film taught us that many people became
slaves in their own country and they have no choice but to obey the higher-ups and force them
to work harder to survive. They are promised steady labour at higher compensation but they
became penniless immigrants and they are stripped of their identification paper that’s why they
don’t have any choice but to follow and to work to survive even if it cost their lives.

3. How can you relate yourself to those who are in the video?

-I think I can relate to the people who work hard in the video because sometimes, I can’t even
stand up for myself and can’t exercise my right as a human. Even if the world gives us
hardships, we still have faith in God and still do our best even if we are not compensated right.
We tend to still go with the flow even if we know that we are being abused and forced.

4. If you are in their shoes, what would you do? If you are present or near the
situation, what do you think you can do as a person?
-I will stood up for everyone and fight for our right as a human and as a labourer. I’ll work hard
to survive and at the same time I will exercise my rights so that we will not experience being
abused and forced ourselves to work to survive. If I am near the situation, I will still stood up
with them and fight for our lives.