Filmmaker Amy Serrano recently shot, produced, wrote and directed the feature-length documentary film "The Sugar Babies: The Plight of the Children of Agricultural Workers on the Sugar Industry of the Dominican Republic". Narrated by Edwidge Danticat and composed of field recordings coupled with outside testimony, the film explores the lives of the descendants of the first Africans delivered to the island of Hispaniola for the bittersweet commodity that once ruled the world. These very same people continue to be trafficked from Haiti to the Dominican Republic to work in sugar under circumstances that can only be considered modern day slavery.
more information...Claudia Chiesi, Ph. D joined Siren Studios in 2005 as a producer for documentary films addressing human rights. She became the Executive Producer for “The Sugar Babies” in 2006.
Prior and appointed in 1995, Dr. Chiesi was the President of Harford Community College (Maryland) and led the college with a $32 million annual operating budget. She completed more than $35 milliion in capital construction including a multimedia library, a 900 seat performing arts center, a science observatory and classroom and technology buildings with capital assets of more than $180 million, 330 acres and a 37% increase in credit enrollment to 5500 and non-credit enrollment of 14,000. She completed two sabbatical projects on educational leadership and international environmental stewardship. From 1990-1995, Dr. Chiesi was the Vice-President for academic and student affairs at Lorain County Community College (Ohio) and from 1988-1990 she was Dean for Instruction at Palm Beach Community College (Florida).
more information...Thor Halvorssen became involved with TSB after being inspired by his friend Ambassador Armando Valladares. Thor is an advocate of the free enterprise system as the solution to the world's poverty problems. He brings to the effort an unequivocal condemnation of mercantilism masquerading as entrepreneurship and seeks to ensure that the project appeals to individuals and communities across the political and ideological spectrum.
Currently, Thor is president of a new organization called the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). HRF is committed to the realization of freedom in the Americas. A lifelong civil liberties and civil rights advocate, Thor is First Amendment Scholar at The Commonwealth Foundation a free-market think tank. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Valladares Foundation, the Advisory Council of the Atlantic Legal Foundation, and the Society of Fellows of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and the Board of Directors of the Moving Pictures Institute. Thor was the first Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a free speech group he headed from its founding in 1999 until he stepped down in 2004 in order to devote himself to the defense of human rights in the Americas.
more information...Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti and moved to the United States when she was twelve. She is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, and The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner, and most recently the acclaimed novel-in-stories, The Dew Breaker. She is also the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States and The Beacon Best of 2000: Great Writing by Men and Women of All Colors and Cultures and has written two young adult novels, Anacaona, Golden Flower and Behind the Mountains, as well as a travel narrative, After the Dance, A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel. Her next book, Brother, I’m Dying, a memoir, will be published in the fall of 2007.
Constance T. Haqq has a lifelong interest in human justice, spiritual growth, social and public service. She currently serves as the Director of Communications and Community Relations for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District in Cleveland, Ohio. She is president of her own business Constance T. Haqq Consulting. Previously she held the position of Executive Director of the Nordson Corporation Foundation. For over a decade, Constance has studied the healing arts and practicing and teaching Reiki. She is an avid reader, writer and personal coach. She resides in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
SALVADOR G. LONGORIA, a native of Cuba, has passionately served the Hispanic community and the New Orleans metropolitan area in general. As a partner in the law firm of Gaudin & Longoria, Salvador has contributed numerous hours and efforts to many organizations and charities and has served on committees for the Volunteers of America, the United Way and the Metropolitan Area Committee. He served on the Board of the New Orleans Pro Bono Project and has done pro bono work for prisoners and Immigration and Naturalization Service detainees for many years. His work with refugees has even taken him to the Guantanamo Naval Base. Having served on Loyola University's President's Council, Salvador now serves as president of the Loyola University Alumni Association Board of Directors. He is a member of the finance committee at St. Anthony of Padua Parish and President of the Hispanic Apostolate, Archdiocese of New Orleans. He serves as a supervising attorney for Tulane Law School's Cuban Detainee Clinical Project and is an Appointee on the Louisiana State Advisory Committee, United States Commission on Civil Rights. He previously served as an appointee for the Pan American Commission as well as being an appointee and chairperson for the United States Department of Commerce Advisory Committee on the Hispanic Population. In the past he was awarded the Adjutor Hominum Award from Loyola University along with the Distinguished Graduate Award from Christ the King School along with various other awards and recognitions. In 1997 Salvador was chosen as one of 40 under 40s by Gambit Weekly magazine and as Outstanding Young Lawyer for 1991 by the Louisiana State Bar Association's Young Lawyer Section and one of twenty outstanding young lawyers in the nation by the American Bar Association in 1990.
"I am involved with the TSB project because the human rights situation is horrific and if I can make just one child happier for just one day, that's enough for me."
Jason A. Ocasio is a Native from the big Apple but claims "At heart, I'm truly Puerto Rican. I was raised there and this blessing has given me the advantage of knowing the best of both worlds as this pertains to the Latin community and market, as well as that of the United States. The remarkable understanding of this niche has led me to win several awards and accolades in my career."
Ocasio has been in the media design business for over 10 years now and has worked with on the musical videos of some of today's most popular Reggaeton artists like Tego Calderon, Daddy Yankee, and Don Omar just to name a few. He's also had the incredible opportunity to collaborate with award-winning directors like Carlos Perez from Elastic People (Miami), Diego Andrade from Kalima films (Colombia) and has extended his skill sets and services to include post-production editing.
Apart from visual effect designs now provided to clients, he's also worked with documentary filmmaker Amy Serrano on multiple occasions and most recently on the editing of her film "The Sugar Babies: The Plight of the Children of Agricultural Workers on the Sugar Industry of the Dominican Republic."
Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Bill Cruz launched his independent music label Winebay Records in 1998 with the goal of producing records for himself and other artists outside the major label system. His first album, Three Shades, a sonically bare and painfully honest journey through dissolution and loss was called one of the best independent folk/pop albums by Miami's New Times. The next year, after considerably expanding his home recording studio, Cruz started a commercial music production company and began composing and producing music for clients such as Sony, 20th Century Fox, Texaco, Tricon and the Boys' and Girls' Clubs of America. During this time, he was also working as a session vocalist and musician on numerous projects in the Miami area.
With 2004 came the release of his second album, Spirit Parade. A more musically experimental and sonically textured album, it's songs explore the connection between physical and spiritual space. Just like his debut album, Spirit Parade was self-released and, earlier this year, it garnered the distinction of becoming one of the first independently-produced records made available on Apple's .
Cruz is currently working with director Amy Serrano on songs for other the Siren Studios produced films. His goal on these projects is to underscore and reflect the films social conscience creatively and in doing so, pursue the ultimate artistic achievement: the uplifting of the human spirit!
The Sugar Babies has special significance to Millie Herrera, because it shows two opposing faces of humanity: the cruelty of a few who exploit others unnecessarily to obtain opulence and wealth, and the kindness of others who have the courage to expose this cruelty, fight against it and be real agents of change at great personal sacrifice and struggle.
Millie Herrera was born in La Habana, Cuba in 1957, and there began her journey in search of social justice and freedom. From a very young age, she chose to speak up against injustice. When in the midst of the Cuban “revolution” her fourth grade teacher wanted to lower her final grades because she was a gusana, (meaning “worm” in Spanish, and a term used to describe Cubans who were against the regime and had asked to leave the country), she stood up in class and argued against this practice. In 1967, she migrated to Spain with her mom, step-dad and baby sister, and seven months later to the United States. They settled in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the following year traveled to Venezuela for the first time to see her father, whom she had not seen since her parents divorced and he left Cuba when she was 3 years old.
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