Poor people's dreams.(Culture)

The New Americans begins in a refugee camp in Benin, Africa. As the Nigerian couple Israel and Ngozi Nwidor board a bus to start their journey to the U.S., the remaining refugees burst into a heartfelt rendition of "We Shall Overcome." This moment, both bittersweet and hopeful for anyone thinking of the civil rights struggle, is emblematic of the kind of knowing, yet subtle political undercurrent running through this documentary. Billed as an epic miniseries, the seven-hour PBS premiere this spring came at a critical time in the national immigration debate.

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"(Immigrants) are viewed with pride as melting pot success stories and feared as people who are so different from us that they will undermine our society," said executive producer Steve James. "Immigrants still face the added burden of racism, barriers of language and culture, and loneliness."

It is that loneliness, quiet heartbreak and family drama that pulses through the documentary, as riveting as the inevitable racist confrontations, cultural differences, or economic struggles these new immigrants endure.

James, the director of Hoop Dreams, is joined by a team of several notable documentary directors for each segment of the series, including Renee Tajima-Pena and Gordon Quinn. They loop together seven storylines that capture many of the major migration trends of today--a Mexican migrant laborer in Kansas, an Indian software engineer in the Silicon Valley, Ogoni refugees escaping Nigeria's military/Shell Oil crackdown, as well as two more unusual stories of Dominican baseball players recruited from Dodgers training camps and a Palestinian woman whose marriage to an American activist lands her in the heart of Chicago before Sept. 11.

The film, which has an almost reality-show level of intimacy with its subjects, is remarkable for its scope. Each story begins in the immigrants' home countries and follows them from plane and bus to the very moment of arrival, and then up to four years after that. The overall effect, while sometimes slow-paced, adds up to a sort of epic saga--where we get to ...