The documentary Precious Knowledge interweaves the stories of students in the Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson High School. While 48 percent of Mexican American students currently drop out of high school, Tucson High’s Mexican American Studies Program has become a national model of educational success, with on average, 93% percent of enrolled students graduating from high school and 85 percent going on to attend college. The filmmakers spent an entire year in the classroom filming this innovative social justice curriculum, documenting the transformative impact on students who become engaged, informed, and active in their communities.
Precious Knowledge is timely as the nation turns its focus toward a wave of anti-immigration legislation in Arizona, with other states planning to follow suit. Along with their harsh anti-immigrant stance, Arizona lawmakers recently passed a bill giving unilateral power to the State Superintendent to abolish Ethnic Studies classes. Precious Knowledge provides an insider’s perspective to a historic battle over civil rights as the student leaders in Tucson High fight to save their classes. The students are able to mobilize rapidly with texting, facebooking, optimism, and a megaphone.
Mounting a public relations campaign to discredit the passionate students, lawmakers and politicians express concerned that Paulo Freire’s textbook, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed teaches victimization and sedition, and they ask that the classroom's Che Guevara posters be replaced with portraits of founding father Benjamin Franklin. Meanwhile, the students answer back by fighting for what they believe is the future of public education for the entire nation, especially as the Latino demographic continues to grow. Precious Knowledge dramatically illustrates what motivates high school teachers and students to form the front line of an epic civil rights battle.
DOS VATOS PRODUCTIONS:
ARI LUIS PALOS:
Ari Luis Palos has directed and shot a number of films including: The Beauty Salon, Mas Alla de la Frontera/Beyond the Border, Impresario, The Kentucky Theatre, El Rio de los Perros/The River of the Dogs, Al Garete/Adrift, Corazon del Plata/Heart of Silver, and The Spirituals. Palos enjoys participating in Tucson’s All Soul’s Procession; a performance art extravaganza where he transforms into a dead vaquero to mourn and celebrate loved ones who have passed. He once rode a Harley Davidson motorcycle from Oaxaca, México to a small factory in Nicaragua, just to smoke the world’s finest cigar.
EREN ISABEL MCGINNIS:
Eren Isabel McGinnis has produced 19 movies including POV’s Tobacco Blues, The Girl Next Door (shortlisted for an Oscar!), Beyond the Border, The Spirituals, and Dos Vatos-México. She has a degree in Cultural Anthropology from San Diego State University, and a certificate in Film and Video Theory and Production from the University College Dublin, in Ireland. McGinnis, a Fulbright scholar, spent a year of living, writing, and filmmaking in Juchitán, México. She is currently in training for the grueling El Tour de Tucson bike ride and enjoys hiking in the Sonoran desert or any place where there is a trail to the mountaintop.
About the Film
Ari Luis Palos and Eren Isabel McGinnis of Dos Vatos Productions began working together in the green tobacco fields of Kentucky during the production of POV’s Tobacco Blues. While living in Oaxaca, México, they selected the work of virtuoso guitarists and chanteuse Lila Downs for the soundtrack of their Global Voices and True Stories PBS series hit show Beyond the Border. Developing their continued interest in documenting civil rights battles, they recorded the voices of some of the finest opera singers in the world while creating The Spirituals. Chicano art, music, and a wellspring of activism lured them to Tucson, Arizona where they currently reside.
Eren Isabel McGinnis and
Ari Luis Palos will be joining us for a day of class visits before the screening. They will also host a discussion after the film.