How to Breathe in Kern County

Today no society is immune from the effects of capitalism. In Haiti “Batay La,” or the struggle, has been ongoing since the slave revolution that founded the Caribbean nation. Batay La examines the current anti-imperialist movement in Haiti, led for decades by grassroots workers’ rights organization Batay Ouvriye. The movement is committed to worker-led solutions as they confront the Haitian government, Haitian factory owners, international brands whose products are fabricated there, and the foreign nations who support this system of exploitation in the name of profit. Batay La was made in co-creation with leaders of Batay Ouvriye.

Every weekday, inmates are released from Huntsville State Penitentiary, taking in their first moments of freedom with phone calls, cigarettes, and quiet reflection at the Greyhound station up the block.

A metallic cacophony resounds as Eric hunts for, and labours through, abandoned scrap. The sun beats down as his pick-up truck rumbles through the day.