This is Home

Over the past several years, the bulk of my creative energy has gone into my work with 1MISSION. I’m grateful for a job that allows me to bring so many disparate parts of myself to work, all in service of something that’s far more significant than a paycheck. Every day—whether we’re organizing 100-mile bike rides and 400-person galas, or cultivating relationships with our supporters and running online giving campaigns—we get to partner with and support local leaders who are transforming their communities in Mexico and Central America, one mustard seed at a time.

But hands down, my favorite thing I get to do in my role at 1MISSION is to work on our short films.

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Back in 2019, right around this time of year, we released Dear Friend, based on the children’s book I wrote. In this short film, two girls—one in Phoenix, the other in Mexico—write letters to each other. They discover that despite everything that separates them, their lives are inextricably and inescapably intertwined.

Two years later, in 2021, we released Dreams. For this project (which turned out to be a herculean one), we gave cameras to a group of creative, energetic young people in Puerto Peñasco and asked them to show us their world through their own eyes. We wanted to know how they see their lives, their communities, and—perhaps most of all—their futures.

Now, we have just released This is Home, another short film in what feels to me, right now, like the culmination of a trilogy. In this one, a wife, mother, and farmworker named Araceli invites us into her story of finding home, far from where she grew up. It’s a story about the importance of memory and tradition, as well as the power of hospitality.

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Each of these films premiered at the 1MISSION Gala, held biennially in recent years at the Phoenix Art Museum. Thanks to our guests, we have been fortunate to raise a lot of money on these nights, all in support of our community development work. And it has been meaningful to me for these short films to play an important role on those occasions.

But here’s what’s been even more meaningful to me on a personal level. For each of these three films, we’ve had another premiere. Thanks to the generous support of our president Greg Yochim, each time we have made it a priority to return to the community where we filmed the project, gathering the “stars of the show” for their very own screening.

The first time we did this, for Dear Friend, it was a simple, somewhat impromptu gathering in the living room of Ailin’s new house. For Dreams, we rented out an event space in town, brought in a bounce house, had face-painting, and ate Sonoran BBQ before watching the film. This time, for This is Home, we returned to the town of Miguel Alemán for a gathering organized by local leaders to celebrate Araceli and everything her story represents.

It means so much to me to be able to tell these kinds of stories, and to tell them in this way. By which I mean crafting and sharing stories with an unwavering commitment to emphasizing the God-given dignity of every person involved. This happens not just in the script and on screen, but throughout the entire process—of which 95% happens behind the scenes.

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I’ll let you in on a little secret: there’s an ongoing tension in our work. As a nonprofit organization, we in the Phoenix office are responsible to raise money. A lot of money. With that responsibility comes pressure, because we know what’s at stake for those in the communities we serve—families that still lack safe, secure housing or access to job skills training programs.

So as anyone in our industry will tell you (anyone who’s honest), there’s always a temptation to be heavy-handed in our messaging and our storytelling, to lean into desperation and pity, to manufacture a sense of impending calamity, to dishonor our subjects and insult our audiences. The temptation, pragmatically speaking, is real. But the costs of taking those shortcuts are high. Too high.

Yes, it’s important that these films help us raise money. At the end of the day, that needs to happen. But here’s what means every bit as much: sitting in a room in Mexico with Ailin or Ismael or Araceli as they see themselves on screen for the very first time. When I’m there in the room with them, I try to watch their faces. That’s the real test of whether we’ve taken shortcuts—or done it right.

Based on the smiles and the tears and the words these friends have shared with me, I think we’re on the right track. I think we are. And I never want to lose that trust.