Hi I'm Eric Ford for Made Here.

Peter Coccoma and Elori Saxl Kramers 2013 film Hide was produced while the directors attended Middlebury College.

Hide takes us inside the daily lives of migrant workers from Latin America.

At Vermont Dairy Farms, as they talk about the isolation and discrimination they experience here, the film offers an all too infrequent chance to hear from those that often go unseen and unheard in the state.

You can watch Hide and other great Made Here films streaming on vermontpublic.org and through the PBS app.

Enjoy the film and thanks for watching.

My name is Bernie Alanis and I am from Puebla.

I am 36 years old and I been working here in the United States for almost 30 years.

My regular day of work is like 4:30 in the morning to be on time.

Yeah.

They start to do is to set up everything, you know like everything you need in the parlor.

After that, you start milking cows.

I work in in Charlotte.

It wasn't a good experience for many reasons.

By the time for work is like this, you have to work like 12:30 in the morning to 8 oclock.

after that, you have to come by like 10:30 to 1:30.

Okay.

After you have a break and you're working from 3:30 to 8pm.

How much hours was sleep like four, three and a half?

Okay.

You have to make your food.

That's true.

Yeah actually we we don't know what day it is I don't know what it is but you just lost a day or months or years, because You dont need to know if its Monday or Tuesday Our milk can be used for fluid milk going to the Boston Market if you go down to Massachusetts to be process for butter.

You could go into the Cabot plant here in Middlebury and the use the cheese.

It will be used we know that but we don't know what if you want to like phone call or anything you just call somebody you pay like 30 or 40 bucks and they bring by, you know, that is only way safe to do things from here.

It's impressive.

And I'm convinced that they more sometimes you just wish you know go on to the town spend the afternoon, you know, in any bar watching people passing by but I have to tell them two days before I go.

I've been working for probably 30 farms and almost half the United States.

So I only have two great farmers who treat me with respect and honor.

I working with the guy and he is trying to be, you know, nice with me in the in the beginning but to my past and he start to change.

He didn't pay me for two months and I said, hey, I think I have to move.

They say, it's okay.

That's fine for me.

No, no problem.

Just take care of yourself.

And I said, Yeah, but I just remind you that you owe like two months and he's a really.

Okay, let me see.

He says you have to wait.

So I wait two weeks.

So as you see what is I can do, I cannot go nowhere I just have to wait and trust him they know you are illegal okay if they abused to you do not have any chance to go to asking for help Not even the police we need to farmers I believe so we got to keep going we have no other choice to have the immigrants come and help us.

To me it looks as simple as that.

They really treat me with respect.

they respect my opinion and that makes me feel important.

That made me feel like I have to treat them even better.

So you see, I am a I am a lucky guy, and that's for sure.

Yeah.

This is this farm has been here, the sixth generation, and I hope they keep it in that, keep it going that way, you know, I lost a friend in there because the lady she jumping in the train and probably 5 hours later we start looking for her and she didn't make it.

She fall down.

So you see these kind of things make you think, what is the purpose about all this?

What is the purpose of migrant other country?

What is the purpose for everything?

We are in the point of the aspirations in desperation in our house, in Mexico or wherever you come from, you go with everything you no have a choice.

You go until you die.

If you are drinking milk in the morning and night, don't forget that me and thousands of thousand guys are milking cows for you.

Vermont Public partnering with local filmmakers to bring you stories made here for more visit vermontpublic.org