Dan De Vivo believes that films are a powerful resource for popular education and cross-cultural exchange. Dan studied Anthropology at Harvard and developed the skill set of a documentary filmmaker while living in New York City for a decade. Dan’s first film, Crossing Arizona, uncovers the historical roots and human consequences of Arizona’s singular approach to illegal immigration. Crossing Arizona aired on the Sundance Channel, received a CINE Masters Series Award and remains a top-seller on the educational market. In 2011, Dan served as a Fulbright Fellow in Jordan.
Valeria Fernández, a native of Uruguay, has been reporting on Arizona’s immigrant community and the many angles and faces of the immigration debate for the ten years she has been in the U.S. As a senior reporter for La Voz Newspaper, Fernández produced in depth features about the plight of unaccompanied minors mistakenly charged as adults for crossing the U.S. border. The National Association of Hispanic Publications named Fernández “Latina Journalist of the Year” in 2004. She also won a national award for her series on the Maricopa County Sheriff’s immigration sweeps in Hispanic neighborhoods in 2009. Fernández is a versatile journalist that currently freelances for CNN Español, CNN International, Radio Bilingue, Inter Press Service, La Opinión, New America Media, and the Arizona Republic. Freelancing for the Phoenix New Times, she recently broke stories on the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office practice of shackling pregnant women during labor.