Kartemquin Films presents this International Documentary Association Award-winning nonfiction series that originally aired on PBS' Independent Lens. It chronicles four years in the lives of a diverse group of immigrants as they start new lives in America. The series begins with an Indian couple who moved to Silicon Valley during the "dot-com" boom, only to come up short when the boom goes bust. Another episode focuses on a Mexican meat packer as he struggles to reunite his family in rural Kansas. Two families flee to America to escape government persecution in Nigeria, including the sister of slain Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Two baseball players from the barrios of the Dominican Republic follow their big-league dreams by trying out for the L.A. Dodgers. Finally, a Palestinian woman marries into a new life in Chicago, but cannot overlook the pain in her homeland in the wake of September 11. "Viewers must drop their sentimental conceptions of immigration and submit to the new ideas and images that are so judiciously and artfully rendered here" (NY Times).

Susana Aiken/Carlos Aparicio/Jerry Blumenthal/Gordon Quinn/Fenell Doremus/Indu Krishnan/Steve James/Renee Tajima-Pena---USA---2004---410 mins.