
{"id":27377,"date":"2012-08-16T10:06:04","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T14:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=27377"},"modified":"2012-08-16T10:06:04","modified_gmt":"2012-08-16T14:06:04","slug":"working-from-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/08\/16\/working-from-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Working from home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Taylor Sisk<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_27378\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27378\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2012\/08\/16\/working-from-home\/minnowmedia1a\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-27378\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia1a.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"MinnowMedia1\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27378\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia1a.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia1a-113x75.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia1a-150x99.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia1a-100x66.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia1a-360x239.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-27378\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Harvesting sweet potatoes, from Minnow Media&#039;s Harvest of Dignity. Photo by Peter Eversoll<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nDonna Campbell and Georgann Eubanks, owners and operators of Carrboro-based multimedia production company Minnow Media, have traveled wide in documenting lives and discovering truths \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but North Carolina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been all over,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Campbell says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but North Carolina is still where I want to do this work. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where I feel the work most needs to be done.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Campbell is from Iredell County. Eubanks came to Duke in 1975 from Atlanta and never left. They know the terrain and the people who traverse it.<\/p>\n<p>For example: Campbell and Eubanks produced three documentaries in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd (<em>Hard Rain, Higher Ground and Faces From the Flood<\/em>), standing with families amid the obliteration of their homes and destruction of their communities, then witnessing, over the course of a decade, as they rebuilt their lives.<\/p>\n<p>Change, transformation, is at the heart of Minnow Media\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our work does have some common threads,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eubanks says, describing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a mission to tell stories about people and places and events on the brink of change,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d stories of transition. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about social and individual transformation, Eubanks says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been pretty faithful to that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Such was the spirit behind the Floyd documentaries \u00e2\u20ac\u201c stories, Eubanks says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153about losing everything and picking up and starting over \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 in the category of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnever-be-the-same-again\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the spirit defining their recent documentary <em>Harvest of Dignity<\/em>, which airs on UNC-TV tonight (Thursday) at 10. <\/p>\n<p><em>Harvest of Dignity<\/em> is a follow-up to Edward R. Murrow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1960 epic documentary <em>Harvest of Shame<\/em>, which looked at the lives of farmer workers, largely in North Carolina, Murrow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home state. Fifty years later, Campbell and Eubanks set out to explore conditions for these workers today. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What has changed? What has not?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Their finding? Much has; much has not.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153These farmworkers are invisible to most people in this state,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Campbell says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153People buy their groceries every day and they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think about where they come from; they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think about who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s picking their tomatoes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>According to Steve Davis, an outreach worker in Greene County interviewed in <em>Harvest of Dignity<\/em>, 95 percent to 98 percent of the farmworkers in his county are Latino. When <em>Harvest of Shame<\/em> was made, most of those faces were black. The faces have changed, but the conditions are in many respects the same.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_27379\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27379\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2012\/08\/16\/working-from-home\/minnowmedia2a\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-27379\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia2a.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"MinnowMedia2a\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia2a.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia2a-113x63.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia2a-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia2a-100x56.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia2a-360x202.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-27379\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Raul Gamez from Harvest of Dignity.  Photo Courtesy of Harvest of Dignity\/Minnow Media<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nThe Fair Labor Standards Act, for example, still allows children to begin working at a younger age and to work longer hours in agriculture than in other industries.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have the same dreams and aspirations as everybody else,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Raul Gamez says in <em>Harvest of Dignity<\/em>. Gamez comes from a family of migrant laborers and now works with the children of farmworkers in collecting oral histories and producing plays around them. <\/p>\n<p>These kids comprise the fabric of the future of  North Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Look around,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Campbell says, by way of explaining that inclination to pursue her work here at home. She viewed producing <em>Harvest of Dignity<\/em> as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an opportunity to tell a story to people in North Carolina about North Carolina. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening right here, and people don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>We have our preconceptions of what labor camps must look like \u00e2\u20ac\u201c essentially, clusters of clapboard. Drive to the coast, Campbell says, and you won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see many of those. Today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153camp\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is more likely a trailer park or a rambling old farmhouse, just within or out of view. Campbell and Eubanks urge you to have a look at the lives beyond.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Division of labor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Minnow Media team was formed 12 years ago. Campbell was in the media business with her sister, Susan, in Iredell County, and Eubanks, a writer and teacher of writing, was chair of the N.C. Humanities Council.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The short version of the story is that we got to know each other because Charles Kuralt died on July 4, 1997,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eubanks says.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_27380\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27380\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2012\/08\/16\/working-from-home\/minnowmedia3a\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-27380\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia3a.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"MinnowMedia3\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia3a.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia3a-113x75.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia3a-150x99.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia3a-100x66.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/MinnowMedia3a-360x239.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-27380\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Young children work long hours.  Photo by Peter Eversoll<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nThe humanities council was preparing to honor Kuralt with its John Tyler Caldwell Award for lifetime achievement. When he died prior to the presentation, the council interviewed the Campbells about producing a video on his life, but the donor chose to go with a New York firm.<\/p>\n<p>Eubanks was impressed with the Campbells\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 work though, and, having long held an interest in exploring video projects, she and Donna Campbell set up shop in Carrboro.<\/p>\n<p>They chose Minnow Media as the name of their firm because, Eubanks says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we think documentary work is like going fishing. You go out and you throw your line in the water and you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to come up with, and then you go home and you make something out of it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that sort of unknown quality of the work that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really interesting to me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eubanks says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and then Donna has this incredible gift of editing, and editing with music, that can be very emotionally powerful.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Eubanks does most of the writing and Campbell is in charge of the visual aspect, but both play numerous roles. And both interact directly with their subjects.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153To be able to talk with someone and have them tell their story in the first person, eyeball to eyeball, is very powerful,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Campbell adds. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I love being able to help that happen, and then get out of the way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In <em>Harvest of Dignity<\/em>, Jeri Hawkins, a nurse who assists migrant farm workers in Pasquotank County, points out a camp from <em>Harvest of Shame<\/em> that still stands, noting that, in general, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Things haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t changed much.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Minnow Media will continue to document how they have and haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I hope it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take another 50 years,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hawkins says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The thing about our projects,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eubanks says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re never over.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donna Campbell and Georgann Eubanks have traveled wide in documenting lives and discovering truths \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but North Carolina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":27378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27377"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27385,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27377\/revisions\/27385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}