“H2 Worker” Finally Available on DVD!
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Is the term “guest worker” a euphemism for something else, not necessarily nice, not entirely fair or just?
Stephanie Black’s H2 Worker certainly seems to assert so.
The documentary covers Jamaican men who are given special guest worker temporary visas (H-2) to enter the U.S. and work in the sugar cane fields of Florida. The men tend to be poor and yet find that making minimum wage in the U.S. is still a better option than anything they could earn in their home country. They must live in overcrowded company barracks and eat highly caloric meals (which a company spokesperson states are cooked by women flown in solely to cook for these men) in order to be sustained through the grueling physical labor of cutting cane—and these are expenses that are deducted from their already measly wages.
Released theatrically in 1990, but only now available on DVD from Docurama, the film features Black’s trademark quiet, subtle style, aided by Maryse Alberti’s lyrical camerawork. There is no narration, but there are interviews with the workers and their employers that contradict each other’s claims. Also effective is the use of the workers’ letters to their loved ones at home, an aural thread that serves as the conscience of the story.
The end result is sad, poetic, enlightening—at times even infuriating—and always engaging.
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| Posted on May 12, 2009
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