Il Sangue Verde Documentary Analysis

The documentary Il Sangue Verde, meaning “green blood”, follows men whom immigrated to southern Italy in search of jobs. The documentary highlights the daily struggles immigrants face after arriving to southern Italy. In southern Italy, immigrants are not usually welcomed by the natives thus they face difficulties such as their living conditions, work environment, and overall treatment. Il Sangue Verde provides a nonbiased overview of the immigrant daily lives through interviews with both immigrants in the South and former mayor, whom present the history of immigration in the South. Rosarno, Italy has become an area in which many from Africa immigrate to in search for better job opportunities. They hope that “Italy makes a good man out of

Immigration employment in southern Italy is slightly higher than Italians’ rate of employment. In the documentary, one immigrant stated, “When a black man goes to Rosarno, people know they’re there to pick oranges.” The fruit cultivation in southern Italy produces a large portion of the region 's income. Many immigrants resort to picking foods because they lack the legal working papers and the fruit picking industry will hire them illegally. By hiring them illegally, it can be assumed that the treatment of the immigrants is far from respectable because southern Italians already see them as lower human beings thus working illegally provides another reason to treat them harshly in their view. The phrase "a modern form of slavery" describes the type of work the immigrants endure. The workers on the orange farms in Rosarno start work at eight in the morning with one mid-day break. During the day, they receive no drink or food and endure any type of weather conditions. The job can cause physical pain in which it can essentially cost their life. An immigrant in the documentary described the harsh working conditions by saying that they need “to eat the sweat off your forehead.” By providing footage of the immigrants working and pictures of past working conditions in southern Italy, the film accurately displays knowledge presented by various studies of the working environment for immigrants in southern