Growing up in the South, I am quite familiar with the derogatory term, “Trailer Trash.” It may have even been applied to some of my relatives. Poor white people may fall lowest on the social scale. Seemingly unable to capitalize on their own perceived economic advantages, they are viewed with considerable disdain.

This makes the quiet dignity and community pride captured in Unhitched so powerful. This twelve-minute documentary is the latest installment of the Windrider summer series. It is streaming here.

Crafted by two Stanford University students, Unhitched takes us inside the Fairie Ring campground and RV park in the lush Russian River Valley. The canopy of redwood trees evokes immediate peacefulness. But the campers have endured plenty of hardships before they found this welcoming home. Prisons, addictions, abuse precede the film, all happening offscreen. Filmmakers Erin Hudson and Ben Wu earned well-deserved Student Academy Award recognition for their empathetic document.

Created before the recent economic crisis, Unhitched served as an early warning. It demonstrates how many people were already living on the margins, just scraping by. Why isn’t there more affordable housing? Why are some in nearby Silicon Valley getting so rich, while others just a little farther north remain remarkably poor? Unhitched doesn’t preach. It merely presents a community struggling to get by. With hard times having trickled up, maybe we need to learn from those who already downsized.