Adios Amor: The Search for Maria Moreno

GALLERY

ABOUT THE FILM

Director/Producer: Laurie Coyle

Genre: Documentary

Program Length: 1 Episode/60 minutes

Broadcast Date: Friday, September 27, 2019, on PBS

In Adios Amor, the discovery of lost photographs sparks the search for a hero that history forgot — Maria Moreno, an eloquent migrant activist and mother of 12. Years before Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta launched the United Farm Workers, Maria used the only weapon she had — her voice — and became an outspoken leader in an era when women were relegated to the background. The first woman farm worker in America to be hired as a union organizer, Maria’s story was silenced and her legacy buried — until now.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Laurie Coyle
Producer/Director

Laurie Coyle is a documentary filmmaker and writer. Her last film was OROZCO: Man of Fire, which aired on PBS AMERICAN MASTERS and was nominated for the Imagen Award and National Council of La Raza ALMA award. Laurie’s work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, San Francisco Arts Commission and Creative Work Fund, among others. Her writing credits include the PBS specials Speaking in Tongues, The Slanted Screen, Life on Four Strings and The Journey of the Bonesetter’s Daughter-The Making of an Opera. She associate-produced The Fight in the Fields, Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers’ Struggle, The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It, and AMERICAN MASTERS’ Ralph Ellison: An American Journey. Laurie majored in political theory at UC Berkeley and worked as an oral historian, focusing on the untold stories of women workers along the US-Mexico border. Her first connection to the farmworkers was through her father, who volunteered at the UFW clinic in Delano during the 1960s grape strike.