This documentary explores sobering developments linked to Japan's emphasis on intense academic pressure and conformity: 2,000 teen suicides per year, a 60 percent increase in crime since 1994, and the phenomenon of hikikomori children-those who have collapsed emotionally and withdrawn from society. Gritty footage shot in chaotic classrooms and dysfunctional homes, combined with commentary from counselors, parents, and dispirited young people, depicts...

Ernie Cortes isn't a business tycoon and he hasn't been elected to public office, but a Texas business magazine named him one of the five most powerful Texans, along with people like H. Ross Perot. Ernie Cortes' influence, though, reaches beyond Texas and he has been called "the most effective Latino grassroots organizer in the country today. He is a man who empowers, a member of the national staff of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a nonprofit organization...

Relates how Americans build, from youth throughout life, by using their ingenuity not only in technological advancement but in everyday efforts by everyone.

In Canada, diversity is represented as "an ethnicity + a hyphen + Canadian." But what if you are one of the many people who don't fit into an obvious category? What if your background is a hybrid of ancestries and you live "in the hyphen"-somewhere in between, where cultural identities overlap? This program examines the experiences of poet Fred Wah and six other Canadians with one parent from a European background and one from a visible minority....

Elegant, flowing, and steeped in mythology, the kimono has survived for fifteen hundred years as a symbol of Japanese tradition and a mirror of Japan's evolving culture. From medieval courtesans adorned in sensual finery to samurai warriors whose clothing signified their military allegiance, anyone donning a kimono accepted and perpetuated its meanings. Today, knowledge of its traditions and observance of the elaborate rules surrounding it have declined....

The leading painter of the Spanish Baroque period, Diego Velazquez covered a wide range of subjects, from royal portraits of King Philip IV and his family to perhaps the most celebrated of all self-portraits, Las Meninas. Filmed on location at The Escorial, The Prado, and in Velazquez's native Seville, this program chronicles the life of the artist through his work, examining his Classical education and apprenticeship under Francisco Pacheco as well...

If there is one building that symbolizes Spain-its history, its romance, its mystery, its conjoining of disparate strains into one, single, recognizably Spanish cultural statement-it is the Alhambra. This program, produced by the Spanish Ministry of Culture, provides a detailed tour of the buildings and grounds, as well as an explanation of the purpose and function of the citadel, and provides historical portraits of those who built and modified it,...

Rigoberta Menchu has become widely known as a leading advocate of Indian rights and ethno-cultural reconciliation-and also a center of controversy-not only in her native Guatemala, but throughout the western hemisphere. In this program, Menchu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and other international awards, talks about her life both at home and in exile, her autobiographical I, Rigoberta Menchu, her associations with the Committee of the Peasant Union...

In 2003, the Wide Angle program Time for School profiled children in seven countries-Afghanistan, Benin, Brazil, India, Japan, Kenya, and Romania-as they started their first year of school, often in the face of great adversity. Three years later this Wide Angle episode returns to visit each child, updating the progress of their educational and personal development. The similarities and contrasts that emerge among the lives of these young people provide...

This program looks at the human drama behind the current debate over U.S. immigration policy. It roams both sides of the Texas-Mexico border, exploring the root causes of why Mexicans immigrate. The role played by transnational corporations and their social and economic impact on both Mexicans and other North Americans is considered. A second segment explores the determination of immigrants and questions why current immigration policies are the most...