Educational Media Reviews Online

With the U.S. extravagance in its consumption of resources, the world’s wealthiest nation turns a blind eye to poverty and the provision of basic services, such as child care, food, and housing. Despite the bleak subject matter, which is steadily furnished throughout, this film offers a welcome dose of optimism. It shares success stories of well adapted immigrants, and accounts of non-English speaking immigrants striving to learn English for a competitive advantage. This hopefulness, however, provides harsh contrast to the gravity and breadth of the problem of poverty in the U.S., particularly as it pertains to immigrants. This work gives sobering insight into the living conditions of impoverished immigrants, including a look into the quasi-communes in which several families live under one roof, and the immigrants’ working environments.

In terms of economics, this is a succinct and informative work. The filmmakers give an excellent exposition of data, graphically and verbally, and do a tremendous job of dissecting the phenomena related to poverty. The film gives ample but straightforward definitions of types of poverty (e.g. asset poverty) and types of impoverished (e.g. situational poor). This work also gives an outstanding analysis of the impact of lower than minimum wage workers on the U.S. economy and labor market. This well-constructed work concludes with a call for educational reform, especially as it concerns professional skills training.

This is an excellent primer to the crisis of poverty in the United States with a sympathetic appraisal of immigrants’ conditions. It goes beneath the surface of the issues, delivering appropriate amounts of data, anecdotes, and editorial content for a work of this scope and duration.

One may note that the music of this documentary has a distinct 1980s feel. While this may be considered to be retro and welcome by some, others may perceive it as passé. Nonetheless, this does not diminish the overall impact of this film.