Academic Resources: film database
Name of film: Secret People: The Naked Face of Leprosy in America
Topics: Stigma; Leprosy/Hansen's Disease; isolation policies
Brief Summary: During the height of fears over AIDS, some "extremists" argued that people with such diseases should be forcibly isolated from the rest of the population. Most of us said, "that could never happen here." But once, and not all that long ago, it did.
From the 1920's to the late 1950's Unites States citizens with leprosy were forcibly transported, often in chains and in sealed boxcars, to Carville, America's last leprosarium. Abandoned by family and friends, stripped of their constitutional rights to vote, to get married and bear children, even to use the telephone, many of Carville's "residents" nonetheless accomplished the remarkable act of transforming their prison into a home. Secret People tells a damning story of outrageous discrimination and stigma in our public health system, interwoven with a haunting and bittersweet chronicle of human courage and perseverance.
Date of Release: 1999
Length: 58 minutes
Where was it produced/filmed & in what language: US (Louisiana); English
Where to get it: Fanlight Productions or Inter Library Loan
Use with (other films or texts): Readings on stigma, quarantine and isolation policies, HIV/AIDS