Latinos put it all on video

Before 17-year-old Jose Hernandez graduates high school and goes to Army basic training in June, he wants to leave something with the community. That reminder: A video about life as a young Latino man in rural Rupert, Idaho.

"Some see us as lazy, good-for-nothings," Hernandez said.

Hernandez said he wants to change these painful, racist perceptions through a video he's crafting with 13 other kids this week for a total of four days through the Raices Project, which is a four-year initiative to strengthen rural Latino communities in Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota and Oregon.

The children from Burley, Jerome, Shoshone and Rupert, ranging in age from 13 to 19, wrote stories they're putting to video with music and pictures. They trained Wednesday in the art of digital storytelling in rented space in the Art Lab at the College of Southern Idaho.

"They're telling stories of their experiences as young immigrants in this part of Idaho," said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, director of Third World Majority out of Las Angeles, Calif., which coordinated video training. "It's about what it's like living between two different worlds."

The three- to five-minute videos will include personal items such as photographs, drawings and letters. In Hernandez's video, there will be signs and cartoons depicting racism and harassment, he said events that have had an impact on his life." "It's every once in a while, it's not an everyday thing."

Hernandez, a tall confident man that prefers standing to sitting, said in few words that he was called a derogatory name by another student in school. "The outcome wasn't too good," said Hernandez, a senior at Mount Harrison High School in Rupert.

For 16-year-old Carmen Avila, who moved from California when she was in fifth grade, her video will capture feelings of otherness as a newcomer through pictures and songs.

"That look, like what are you guys doing here, that type of look," said Avila, 16, a junior at Jerome High School.

"It kind of makes me feel like why do people do that?" Avila said. "We have different skin color, but we're all human, we have feelings."

This video project was free for students, many of which were recruited from a youth group of Saint Jerome's Catholic Church, said Millie Gaitan-Gonzalez, an Idaho coordinator for the Raices Project.

"Maybe there will be a change in the way some people see Latinos in the U.S.," Hernandez said.

There will probably be a community viewing of the videos, Gaitan-Gonzalez said, but exact times and locations have yet to be determined.

The Raices Project is a partnership between the University of Iowa Institute for Support of Latino Families and Communities, The Main Street Project, which is a Minnesota-based nonprofit, and the Northwest Area Foundation.