ROCLA PROGRAM FOR

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6th, 2016 7:00 PM
DOWNTOWN UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
121 N Fitzhugh Street, Rochester, NY

“Discovering Dominga”

When 29-year-old Iowa housewife Denese Becker decides to return to the Guatemalan village where she was born, she begins a journey towards finding her roots, but one filled with harrowing revelations.  Denese, born Dominga, was nine when she became her family’s sole survivor of a massacre of Mayan peasants.  Two years later, an American family adopted her.  In Discovering Dominga, Denese’s journey home to Guatemala is a voyage of self-discovery.  It is also an action that permanently alters her relationship to her American family, and that brings about a political awakening.  This awakening, in turn, sheds light on an act of genocide against this hemisphere’s largest indigenous population.
(Movie length: 60 min.)

Discussants:

Tom Ward, winner of ROCLA’s Local White Dove Award in 2013, travels regularly to the Rio Negro and Rabinal regions of Guatemala, where Dominga was born. He has led delegations to the region with Rights Action and presently with The Garden’s Edge.  He is working with the survivors of the massacres in growing their own crops for food and economic security, helping to provide scholarships and job training for the youth, and promoting healthy food and care for the children in the region.  Having recently returned from the region, he will provide a first-hand update on the situation there.

Grahame Russell is an internationally respected lawyer and global human rights and development activist.  For over 10 years, Grahame lived in Mexico and Central America, working with grassroots organizations and NGOs.  Since 1995, Grahame has been director of Rights Action.  ROCLA awarded Russell the International White Dove Award in 2001.

ROCHESTER COMMITTEE ON LATIN AMERICA—A TASK FORCE OF METRO JUSTICE

All invited; Admission Free; Looped for the Hearing Impaired