‘A Thousand Pines’: Film depicts migrant tree planters’ odyssey

Noam Osband needed a topic for his anthropology Ph.D. dissertation.

He knew he was interested in immigration and that he wanted to make a film, rather than write a conventional academic paper. In the Ozarks, where he was spending much of his time, he came to know a number of back-to-the-land enthusiasts. They suggested he research Latino migrant tree planting crews.

“I’d never even heard of tree planting as a job,” Osband told his audience at The Ware Center.

His documentary, “A Thousand Pines” was screened Nov. 13 as part of Millersville University’s free “On Screen | In Person” series. Made in partnership with Sebastian Diaz, a Mexican filmmaker It is a reworking of a three-hour version that Osband submitted to the University of Pennsylvania’s anthropology department — becoming the first Penn student to do so.

The film follows a crew from Tlaxico, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, as they journey around the rural U.S. in a minivan, planting pine seedlings by the thousands.

They and hundreds of crews like them plant roughly 1.5 billion trees a year to offset those harvested by America’s wood products industry, the world’s largest. The average worker is expected to plant 4,000 seedlings a day, six to seven days a week, for eight months at a time. They typically earn $500 to $600 a week: Low by American standards, but the equivalent of two to three months’ wages in Mexico.

The pace is unrelenting, but as the film shows, that wasn’t always the case. In the 1970s, tree planting was a popular seasonal job for young hippies. The schedule was less demanding and piece rates were higher. You could work for a few months then go work on your cabin in the woods.

Over time, competition and consolidation drove the pace up and wages down. Companies, some founded by former hippies, shifted to hiring Latino guest workers, brought into the U.S. on H2B visas: They worked far harder and more reliably than Americans and were willing to accept the low pay.

That sequence of developments stood out for Christina Perez, an assistant professor of American Studies at Franklin & Marshall College. Perez was one of four local panelists who spoke before the screening. The film doesn’t vilify the hippies-turned-entrepreneurs, “but it does highlight their complicity,” she said, and it raises questions about the complicity of anyone who benefits from the exploitation of migrant labor that is out of sight and out of mind.

Maria DelCarpio, recruiter for the Migrant Education Program at Millersville University, said the film made her cry, because it so poignantly depicts the tremendous sacrifices migrants make for their families.

Foreign-born workers make up a significant part of southcentral Pennsylvania’s agricultural workforce, especially in the mushroom industry around Kennett Square in Chester County, and “their conditions, are very, very hard,” DelCarpio said. The work entails near-constant crouching and they are on the job 12 hours a day or more.

Millersville University biology professor Carolyn Weaver and Keith Williams, vice president of engagement and education at the Lancaster Conservancy, said they appreciated the focus on the human component of industrial-scale agriculture — the work the crews do and the physical and emotional toll it takes.

“I can’t imagine the volume of trees that these guys put in the ground in a day,” Williams said.

The same economic factors that drive the exploitation of migrant workers incentivize the planting of monoculture tree farms. Compared to the natural woodlands they replace, they are far less resilient and provide far more meager habitat for other species, Weaver and Williams said. Recent research suggests that companies could interplant hardwood seedlings with their fast-growing farmed trees, then selectively cut the latter, better maintaining ecosystems and biodiversity, Williams said.

Osband said he intended to plant trees alongside the crew, but found he couldn’t do so and film, too. In time, he found a role that worked: “El Aguador,” or water boy, bringing drinking water to the men toiling away.

What reforms might improve conditions for migrant planters? Modifying the H2B program to allow visa holders to switch employers would make a big difference, Osband said. At present, they are locked into working for the company that sponsors them, which curtails their bargaining power and recourse against exploitation.

The emotional core of “A Thousand Pines” is the workers’ relationship to their families back home. There are heart-wrenching phone calls to wives and girlfriends; and interviews with children longing for papa’s return.

Osband said he hadn’t realized how large a role the families would play in the film, but over time it became apparent that this was the film he wanted to make. He said he sometimes describes “A Thousand Pines” as a love story.

“It’s about what people do and what they sacrifice for their families.”