‘First Time Home’: four cousins search their roots

(Photo/Firsttimehomefilm.com)

It’s always a special treat when a film boasts a local connection. Such is the case with “First Time Home,” a 29-minute film that will play at 7 tonight at the Magic Lantern Theatre.

The film was produced by Seth M. Holmes, a physician and anthropology professor at the University of Southern California who grew up in Spokane.

It was Holmes who applied for a grant so that four teenagers, all cousins, could document their visiting their gravely ill grandfather in Mexico. Speaking to their parents and grandparents, the four learned a lot about their roots.

That’s why the film is rendered in three different languages: English, Spanish and Triqui, which is the native language of their collective family.

Based on the video letters the cousins recorded for their families, the film also serves as a study of life as lived by American farmworkers. In fact, Holmes the author of a book titled “Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States.”

Holmes has tender feelings toward his hometown. “My parents live in Kendall Yards, and I go back up there a few times a year,” he told The Spokesman-Review. “I love my hometown. It’s such a beautiful place.”

But his main concern at the moment is getting people to attend tonight’s screening.

“I just want as many people to see our film,” he said. “They need to understand that farmworkers help our health get better while their health gets worse. Something has to change.”