California and the American Dream

Product Description

Please use this page to order only if you wish to purchase the entire series (four titles) at its discounted price of $725, plus shipping and handling. If you wish to purchase individual titles from the series you may do so on this web site; here are the links to the individual titles:

California’s “Lost” Tribes
The Price of Renewal
The New Los Angeles
Ripe for Change

This incisive, thought-provoking four-part series explores the dynamics of culture, community, and identity in California, one of the most diverse places in the world. Each film provides a trenchant and highly discussible case study of divergent California social trends that are keenly evident all across America.

As the four films illustrate, in the last 35 years California has become center stage to a wide array of issues redefining the American experience — from changing demographics to new models of civic engagement, from the role of immigrants in neighborhood life to the democratic challenge of the initiative process, from sustainable agriculture to Native American gaming and sovereignty.

The experience of California, the world’s sixth-largest economy, may become central in deciding the priorities of life in a post-industrial America in which “minorities” constitute a majority of the population.

Each film stands alone and may be purchased separately. However, taken together, the four episodes examine a complex, daunting, but supremely crucial set of issues and illuminate a question of unsurpassed importance to our nation: Can peoples of diverse cultures and thinking come together to redefine home, community, and civic participation in ways that lead to a peaceful, prosperous society?

Each of the four films that make up California and the American Dream will generate thought, analysis, and discussion in a wide variety of courses in sociology, American studies, ethnic studies, popular culture, political science, and contemporary social issues, among many others.

California and the American Dream is a co-production of Paul Espinosa, Lyn Goldfarb, and Jed Riffe and the Independent Television Service (ITVS); Executive Producer Sally Jo Fifer; funding by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The films are all closed-captioned.

For more information on each of the films in the series, see:

California’s “Lost” Tribes
The Price of Renewal
The New Los Angeles
Ripe for Change