When brothers Armando and Carlos Peña set off to carry their mother’s ashes to south Texas, their road trip turns into a quest for answers about a strangely veiled past. As they reunite with five other brothers, the two men try to piece together their family’s shattered history. Why was their mother cast out by her family? What happened to their father, who disappeared during the notorious 1954 U.S. deportation program Operation Wetback? CALAVERA HIGHWAY is a sweeping story of seven Mexican-American men grappling with the meaning of masculinity, fatherhood and a legacy of rootless beginnings.
Calavera Highway premieres on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008 at 10 p.m. on PBS, part of the 21st season of P.O.V. (Check local listings.) American television’s longest-running independent documentary series, P.O.V. is public television’s premier showcase for point-of-view, nonfiction films, and is a 2007 recipient of a Special News & Documentary Emmy Award for Excellence in Television Documentary Filmmaking.
Produced in association with American Documentary | P.O.V. A co-presentation of Latino Public Broadcasting. Funded in part by Center for Asian American Media with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
