Trans Latina immigrant detained in a men's prison to be featured in new HBO documentary

By Jorge Rivas  |  November 24, 2016 | 3:12pm
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A new documentary scheduled to premiere Dec. 5 on HBO offers a viewing experience rarely seen on television screens: An hour of in-depth interviews with members of the transgender community by Janet Mock, a transgender journalist.

The documentary, called The Trans List, features interviews with Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox. It also includes a groundbreaking interview with Bamby Salcedo, a Latina transgender immigrant, who shares her experiences of being detained first in a men’s prison and then in a federal immigration detention center.

“I’m a very proud trans Latina immigrant,” Bamby Salcedo says in the documentary. She talks about what motivated her to become an activist fighting for the rights of trans Latinas.

The documentary is the latest in the multi-volume series by portrait photographer and documentary filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. His documentaries are shot with special equipment that allows viewers to make direct eye contact with his subjects.

Fusion featured Salcedo in a 2014 investigation that looked at the conditions that transgender women face while detained in men’s immigration detention centers in the U.S. The Trans List documentary uses some of Fusion’s material from the investigation.

Other people featured in The Trans List documentary include adult film star Buck Angel, activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, and Sgt. Shane Ortega, a helicopter crew chief in the Army’s 25th Infantry Division featured in an earlier piece on America With Jorge Ramos.

 
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