TTS works within the framework of Asociacion Tepeyac, a network of community based not-for-profit organizations whose fundamental mission is to defend and promote the human and labor rights of Mexican and other Latino workers in the tri-state area.
Most of the documentaries that TTS has produced are the result of the video and television production workshops which the group has been carrying out regularly since its funding in 2002. In the workshops, created and until now organized by Brenda Campos, the members of the group have familiarized themselves with the technical production of video in its different aspects, from pre-production to post-production. Therefore, and contrarily to what happens in the professional marketplace where these activities are generally separated and specialized, Tepeyac Television Service made the activities of pre-production, production and post-production collective. When someone was designated to direct, others produced, operate the camera, run sound or edit. In the next project, the members rotate their roles.
The most important aspect of this method, however, is that through this collective mode of working, projects were born through sharing experiences, debating ideas, writing and reading scripts, experimenting with various techniques, teaching others and building a small, but solid media group that has created strong links with the Mexican community in the area.
The result, as can be appreciated from the catalogue of videos contained in this webpage, is a body of work of incredibly transformative power. The videos have the virtue of transforming the everyday life of the protagonists--the Mexican immigrants in NYC--into compelling visual narratives. These stories, additionally, have transformed, in a certain way, the everyday life of the Mexican immigrant community itself. Even though it has not occurred in a practical and tangible manner, the transformation flourished in the way that the community started to perceive itself, due to the continued private exhibition of the videos in Tepeyac's facilities and through the Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), the public television of the city, where the videos have had a vigorous circulation inside and outside the community.