Plot

"Valley of Tears" begins in 1979 with a farm strike in South Texas. When pistols were flourished and strike leaders arrested, migrant worker Juanita Valdez recalls: "We realized for the first time Mexican-Americans had rights, that we were the majority....that we were Americans." It took over 20 years to document this dream come true.—Anonymous

Focusing on the small agricultural South Texas town of Raymondville, one-time Barbara Kopple cinematographer, Hart Perry, follows the struggles of race relations in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s by recording three different confrontations between the local power elite Anglo farmers and the Hispanic farm workers. In the late 1970s the action is the Texas Farm Workers strike of the 1979. Archival footage of the violent racism from the early days of settling South Texas are intecut with action footage of the strike in which migrant workers and labor organizers clash with local growers focusing on the harvesting of the yearly onion crop, the farm workers efforts create effective protests and law enforcement and the growers efforts to break the strike. Section two of the film focuses on the Hispanic community's efforts to get representatives elected to the local school board and the incumbent administration's ugly reaction. Part three follows the 1990s political campaigns of Juan Guerra, a reformer who tries to address the racism that dominates the local business and political scene by first starting a school for the students who had been expelled from Raymondville schools and ultimately gets elected as the county district attorney. Throughout the film the organizers of the 1979 strike continue to comment on the impact of the changes they wrought. In the end Guerra, who is still the DA as of 2003, looks back and reflects that if there is still corruption in the community it is now the Hispanic community's fault.