DadadaDAdaDAAAA~ Bohr.

Finally home and able to blog.

Right, so Saturday (the 22nd) Laura and I interviewed Neil B. Turner, founder of "San Diego Christians for Secure Borders", an affiliate of the San Diego Minutemen. It was sort of a package deal, because he came with a woman named Sue who does not really have any affiliations, but clearly feels very strongly about the issue of illegal immigration and allowed us to film her voicing her opinions as well.

We woke up (very early, in my opinion) and went out to "Bobby's Hideaway Cafe" in Carlsbad, which is conveniently placed next to, as Neil referred to it, "a cesspool of migrant workers." Laura interviewed Neil and Sue while I filmed, and despite the answers being far from what we expected in some cases, we have a lot of good material. I am actually kind of upset that we have to cut so much of it out; it's like we could make a full length documentary rather than a six minute one.

ANYWAY, we had to omit a good deal of our questions as Neil and his group never patrol the borders themselves; we did get to see all of the signs they put up around areas, like the cafe we met up at, where illegal workers congregate. Neil and Sue's attitudes towards our questions were actually very surprising, and it was interesting to hear the views of people who care about the border situation for legitimate reasons and know how to express their reasons verbally. I also really appreciated that they didn't plan to push their views on us and actually they told us that they were grateful that we were even listening. It was a huge relief really, because going into the interview I was actually pretty terrified. It's hard to hear the word 'Minuteman' without feeling something negative, and it didn't help that the fellow who directed us to Neil (Jeff Schwilk) was in the Union Tribune the very same day for posting fliers on people's doors, calling them "Mexico Lovers" as a derogatory term.

Oh, also we ended up obtaining quite a bit of the fliers and informational packets handed out by the group, so if I can get them from Laura I'll be scanning them this week.

I'm sort of going on and on so I'll stop and work on the flash, which is very nearly done. I'll have to make a second flash as soon as I get a photo of Austin, so I'm hoping that isn't also due on Wednesday.