An American Tradition

This documentary is about Tradition, an American Tradition, one that began when our country began - long before 1776. But the underlying story is also one of a new tradition that is blossoming - one that is not solely American, but it is about new traditions starting for others.

This documentary is about loyalty, about hard, honest work and the people who perform it, tirelessly and without complaint. They perform it because of their love for it.

This documentary is about families - and family tradition; about passing down, through several generations, the same way of life. The traditions of starting a young boy in the field, when he is seven years old, “throwing sticks” that will be used to spike the harvested plants. And when that boy turns thirteen, or fourteen, giving him a small plot of land, for his very own, to begin growing his own crop of tobacco and learning to make an honest living - and all the while still working with the elders, in the main fields, year after year. This is a story about a right of passage for young men.

This is a documentary about respect; for their elders and for one another. It is about camaraderie and about sticking together. It is about a way of “life” and a way of living.

This documentary will, I have no doubt, be controversial in many ways, as it deals with subjects that always seem to be at the forefront of our disdains and debates: tobacco and immigration. However this documentary is about neither, even though both are part of the whole. It would have been impossible to tell the story otherwise.

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