Daughters of imprisoned moms regroup for a sequel

"Troop 1500" focuses on a Girl Scout troop at the Gatesville Prison system in Texas that unites daughters with mothers who have been convicted of serious crimes. Facing steep sentences from the courts and tough questions from their children, the mothers struggle to rebuild relationships with their daughters who endure a childhood without them. "Troop 1500" initially broadcast on PBS's Independent Lens in 2006 after a national screening tour with film festivals and troop gatherings by the Girl Scouts, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The film was screened in a number of prison support-group organizational gatherings and, I am proud to add, for prisoners, too. Though I had stayed in touch with a few girls as a mentor and received news of screenings through the film's distributor--Women Make Movies--I had not considered much in the way of a follow up. However, at the beginning of this year I received some funding for a sequel that spurred me to reconnect with the girls featured in the documentary. I called the project "Mikaela's Film" in honor of one of the daughters in Troop 1500, all of whom are former Girl Scouts who had made a trek together each month to see their mothers at the Hilltop Unit, Gatesville's prison for women. With the help of Facebook, Mikaela initiated the process of reuniting a good deal of the girls in Troop 1500, something I had struggled to do for months. Sadly, almost all of their mothers have ended up back in prison as repeat offenders or are well on the way again. The daughters, though, for the most part, have revealed to me resilience even greater than I could have imagined eight years ago. The young women of Troop 1500 have all agreed to participate in the sequel, not only as subjects this time, but as apprentices in the making of the film and as participants telling their stories. A Marked Passion The participants (Mikaela, Jessica, Miken, Caitlin, Jakira, Zybra and Jasmine) range in age from 16 to 22. They show a marked passion to share stories with the next generation of daughters who confront parental incarceration. That number is growing by the day. For the first time in this nation's history, more than 1-in-100 American adults are behind bars and a disproportionate number are Hispanic and African American. As I began re-connecting with the girls of Troop 1500, I found that in spite of their previous relationships with Girl Scout mentors, they were all facing uncertainty due to economic instability. With this film I hope to forge a new model of documentary filmmaking, where the filmmaker takes some responsibility for offering an opportunity to her subjects as both a kind of intervention and potential opportunity in a collapsed economy. As the daughters arrived for the eunion this past October, Miken was the first to note how much had changed. She now has two children of her own; a son of 3 and an 18-month-old girl. "We just fell into each other's arms, traded phone numbers, Facebook addresses and picked up conversations that had been started years ago," Miken told me. Her influence as an older, wiser voice amidst the young troop members was palpable at the reunion. "I don't want to be that statistic of what happens to a girl whose mom is in jail. I don't want to be my mom. I'm in college, with young kids, and not doing drugs," she told the others. Caitlin is the daughter of Kenya, who despite repeated tearful promises to her children ended up back in jail after less than a year on the outside. As Miken spoke, Caitlin nodded in agreement.