The Guestworker tells the story of Don Candelario Gonzalez Moreno, a 66-year old Mexican farmer who has been coming to the U.S. since the 1960s as a farm laborer. He is some twenty to forty years older than all the thousands of Mexican men who work in today’s United States’ H2A Guest Worker program started in 1986. Despite his age, he continues to work long hours in tobacco, cucumber, and pepper fields, sweating and worrying – all for his family, particularly his ailing wife. He says he still wants to work “harder than all the others” as he did when he was a younger man, but now knows he just can’t. Yet he is asked back, year after year, because of his commitment to hard work, his “good attitude,” and his long-term service to Wester Farms in North Carolina. With revealing insight, filmmakers Cynthia Hill and Charles Thompson embark on an intimate exploration of Cande during one particularly grueling season while delving into this little-known guest worker program now already twenty years in existence.

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The Farmworker Institute currently has several copies of “The Guestworker” from the Filmmakers’ Library (thanks to the support of the Duke Endowment).  With the permission of the filmmaker, we are happy to loan this DVD for use in congregations across the state.

To request a copy of the film, just fill out the form below.  We will ship the DVD along with a return envelope free of charge.  All we ask is that you return the DVD to us within one week of your screening event.  Thanks.