IN PRODUCTION
Immigration High (working title) is a feature-length documentary chronicling a year in the life of a handful of newly arrived immigrant and refugee students at Oakland International High School, an innovative public school that educates non-English speaking students in English only. For these teens – Asian, Latino, African, Middle Eastern, many fleeing war and disease, others arriving penniless and undocumented – the first year in an American high school will be pivotal. It will be a time of reinvention and assimilation, cultural and ethnic tension, educational rigor, and new discoveries and encounters with classmates and the communities they live in. During a time of heated national debate about immigration and the country’s failing educational system, Immigration High cuts through many hot-button issues with intimate, personal stories – often captured by the students themselves – charting the journey after their journey to America.