The Unbroken Sky: Film Screening and Fireside Chat with Francisco Jiménez

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Join the Center for Latin American Studies for a screening of The Unbroken Sky, a narrative dramatic short film adapted from the memoirs of award-winning author Francisco Jiménez. The film follows his family's journey as immigrant farmworkers in California: a childhood working in the fields, the struggle to attend school, and a close-knit family's constant fear of deportation.

The screening will be followed by a fireside chat between Francisco Jiménez, Professor Emeritus at Santa Clara University, and Tomás Jiménez, Professor of Sociology at Stanford and Founding Faculty Director of the Institute for Advancing Just Societies. A Q&A will follow with Francisco Jiménez and members of the production team: Josh Peterson (Director and Screenwriter), Normandie Ramirez (Executive Producer), and Robin Mortarotti (Creative Consultant and Producer).

Francisco Jiménez is the author of the memoir series The Circuit, Breaking Through, Reaching Out, and Taking Hold. The series is recognized among the American Library Association's 50 Best Young Adult Books of All Time.

Learn more about the film at theunbrokensky.com.

Sponsors: Center for Latin American Studies. Co-sponsored by Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies (CCSRE) and El Centro Chicano y Latino.

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Francisco Jiménez, Author & Professor Emeritus

Francisco Jiménez, Professor Emeritus at Santa Clara University, emigrated from Mexico to California as a child and worked alongside his family as migrant farmworkers before earning his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. His memoirs, adapted into plays and the film The Unbroken Sky, chronicle his family's journey and the broader experience of immigrant farmworkers. His four-book memoir series—The Circuit, Breaking Through, Reaching Out, and Taking Hold—is recognized among the American Library Association's 50 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. Honored by the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, the California State Senate, and the Governor of Jalisco, he has received the John Steinbeck Award, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the U.S. Professor of the Year Award.

Tomás Jiménez, Founding Faculty Director, Institute for Advancing Just Societies; Professor of Sociology, School of Humanities and Sciences; Joan B. Ford Professor; Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education

Tomás Jiménez's research and writing focus on immigration, policy, assimilation, refugee resettlement, and ethnic and racial identity. He has published three books on these topics: Replenished Ethnicity: Mexican Americans, Immigration and Identity (2010); The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants Change American Life (2017); and States of Belonging: Immigration Policy, Attitudes, and Inclusion (co-authored, 2021). Professor Jiménez has also published his research in numerous journals, including Science, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jiménez has taught at the University of California, San Diego. He was a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer (2017-19). He has also been an Irvine Fellow at the New America Foundation and a Sage Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (CASBS). He was the American Sociological Association Congressional Fellow in Congressman Michael Honda's office, where he served as a legislative aide for immigration, veterans’ affairs, housing, and election reform. His writing on policy has appeared in reports for the Immigration Policy Center and the Migration Policy Institute.

Josh Peterson, Director & Screenwriter

Born in Vermont in 1969, Josh Peterson grew up in Brooklyn, the Washington, D.C. area, and overseas in Beirut, Lebanon. After graduating from Harvard in 1991, he moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where he worked with legendary maverick filmmaker Rob Nilsson for several years as an actor, assistant director, and editor. Since the early 1990s, Peterson has worked as a freelance editor for clients ranging from KQED to Lucasfilm to Apple and countless independent documentary producers making films for PBS, ABC, the Sci-Fi Channel, National Geographic Explorer, and others. He recently edited the award-winning Born This Way, The Welcome, and Skin of Glass. He was nominated for a national Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Editing in 2009 for his work on Soldiers of Conscience. He also edited The Rape of Europa, which was shortlisted for a Best Documentary Academy Award. In 2010, Peterson returned to narrative projects. Since then, he has written and directed several short films of his own, including the award-winning Forest Born and The Night of My Death, and his first feature film, Like Reply Share, which won the Best Drama Audience Award at Cinequest in 2020. His short Thirsty premiered at Tribeca in 2021 and his latest film, Your Rose Garden, won Best Short and Best of Fest at Better Cities Film Festival in 2025.

Normandie Ramirez, Executive Producer

Normandie’s career spans years in advertising, broadcast and independent film production working for prestigious media, entertainment and Fortune 500 companies. Early in her career she learned the craft and discipline of indie filmmaking from maverick filmmaker Rob Nilsson on the indie film Chalk. She has developed independent feature films, websites, interactive TV, commercials, and branded content. As Executive Producer at Paramount Digital Entertainment she managed complex multimillion-dollar projects for properties such as MTV, Showtime and Star Trek, as EP at SYPartners she had the privilege and honor of creating and collaborating with Keith Yamashita, and as Executive Producer for the award-winning Like Reply Share she rediscovered her love for indie films. Currently, she is the Chief Production Officer at Glass and Marker, a creative agency based in Oakland.

Robin Mortarotti, Creative Consultant & Producer

Robin is an award-winning filmmaker with over forty years experience as a producer and director of photography on feature, documentary, commercial, and indie films. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the C.I.N.E. Golden Eagle, a Columbia/duPont, and Sigma Delta Chi for A Death in the Family and Enrique’s Story, narrated by James Earl Jones. For Paramount Pictures Robin wrote the creative treatment and photographed The Godfather Family, A look Inside. Robin developed, produced and photographed the indie suspense thriller Clownhouse, with Sam Rockwell and co-produced and photographed 2nd unit on Gunfighter, a period 1880’s western starring Martin Sheen for Francis Ford Coppola’s Commercial Pictures.