“The Pushouts” (2018, dir. Katie Galloway) explores the remarkable story of Victor Rios’ evolution from school pushout and gang member to UC professor, author, and thought leader on the school-to-prison pipeline via three narrative threads: archival footage of Rios and key mentors from the cutting room floor of the 1994 PBS FRONTLINE film “School Colors,” original verité of Rios’s summer in Watts after his former mentor calls on him to work with 40 pushout youth, and a series of cinematic vignettes from Victor and Rebeca’s life. “The Pushouts” examines crucial questions of race, class, power, and the American dream at a particularly urgent time.

 

 

After the hour-long film, Dr. Victor Rios and Dr. Rebeca Mireles-Rios (Victor’s partner both in life and in volunteering to run the 2013 YO!Watts intensive summer program) will join Gevirtz School Dean Jeff Milem and SAGE Sara Miller McCune Dean of Social Sciences Charles Hale for an on-stage conversation about the film, a hard knocks story told with an unusual degree of hope and inspiration, systemic critique, and aesthetic nuance.