Steve James’ new project The New Americans is a multi-part documentary series that goes inside the lives of immigrants and refugees in America. Individual characters come from all over the world, for a myriad of reasons: to pursue athletic glory to escaping death and persecution and no longer being treated as a second class citizen. Many of them want what every American wants: a chance to live in peace and pursue their dreams.They wrestle with profound questions of whether to stay in America or not, become American citizens or not, and whether they will be unable to return home someday even if they want to. As they did in the widely acclaimed Hoop Dreams, the filmmakers are spending years documenting the daily triumphs and setbacks of the subjects’ lives, from the homelands they tearfully leave behind to their first tenuous years in America.