It's not easy living a country where most people are not even aware of what hemisphere they are living in, where even those indigenous to it are unwanted "aliens" while millions of other people are greeted with open arms who bring in their own cultural prejudices and bigotries (see the anti-affirmative action lawsuits backed largely by immigrants with racist cultural backgrounds). We also live in a country where certain people are regarded as "alien" in both the "cultural" and legal sense, even if neither is necessarily true; Hispanics are essentially voiceless in this country and thus the "conversation" about them them centers around the "border crisis," drugs, crime and whatnot. Many people in this country don't regard them as "human"as themselves and thus are free to practice prejudice against them and feel they have the power to harm their lives with even the most trivial or false accusations--and they will be believed because there is no push-back against the practice of this bigotry.
I feel so strongly about this personally that I felt forced to defend Amber Heard from an accusation of "racism" by Swoop concerning a deleted tweet about the ICE that I thought was spot on, and I don't think that ForAmerica, a far-right advocacy group (regardless of how they try to "spin" themselves) has much wiggle room themselves to call it "racist":
Predictably Heard doubled up on the thought...
...and I had to respond to Swoop's accusation that this too was not just "racist" but "gaslighting" people about anti-Hispanic prejudice, since I think both blacks and women are too tunnel-visioned in their own sense of "victimization" to empathize with the fact that Hispanics are deliberately rendered voiceless about the prejudice they face in this country. I think Heard is "sincere" since her sister is married to a Hispanic man (where did people think the name Henriquez came from?), and their kids look "Hispanic" so I can understand if there is something "personal" about the way she might sense they are treated in the world since they are related to her by "blood."
Of course there are limits to my sympathy for a person who apparently took pleasure in torturing JD on that island "detox" program by withholding withdrawal medication when he was in agony, and he testified to having to take scalding showers so that his body would react to that pain instead.
Anyways, this post is supposed to be about a movie I wanted to look at a long time ago, and I think it is time to do that now. I first saw Gregory Nava's 1983 El Norte in a college film studies class, along with John Sayles' The Brother from Another Planet, which I assumed was the professor's desire to provide some social consciousness training for a class otherwise full of privileged white Southerners. El Norte was filmed during a time when the U.S.--and in particular the Reagan administration--was funding and arming right-wing murder regimes simply because they were not "communist" regimes, and "leftist" groups that represented mostly indigenous peoples oppressed by "Euro-elites" were targeted for extinction instead of being negotiated with.
Looking at El Norte today one might say it is "dated" in one respect: that these countries are no longer ruled by right-wing murder regimes (or least not "murder" regimes), and that the principle issues arise from gangs and the drug trade today. But if we choose to think about it, the message of the film has not changed one bit in 40 years, just the names of the villains have changed. Today's problems in Central America are also be traced to the U.S.; instead of funding murder regimes, Central American countries are suffering from gang problems that were first U.S.-prison-bred and then "deported," and the insatiable desire for illegal drugs in the U.S. has moved much of the "manufacturing" from the U.S. to Latin America--and with it all the violence between "competitors" that goes with it. I think it is useful for people to understand better what is going on by recalling all the violence between crime syndicates in the 1920s and early 1930s involving the domestic illegal alcohol "trade" during Prohibition.
In El Norte, the brutal, oppressive regime that the principles live under and the soldiers who enforce the repression of the people are little differentiated from the activities of cartels and their foot soldiers, and it takes very little "imagination" to make that connection. Thus when watching this film, its relevance for today's world should not be a matter of doubt. What people were living through in 1983 is the same as today, with only the names changed. The film is 140 minutes long, with the majority of the runtime dealing with events prior to the actual arrival "North."
The film starts out with the unspoiled, lush, green tropical scenery of Guatemala...
...where indigenous workers appear to be picking coffee beans:
They are being watched by an armed overseer, who announces the end of the day's work with a gun shot:
On the way back to the village, Arturo (Ernesto Gomez Cruz) reminds a co-worker about a meeting that night:
There is a long-range shot of the village, the most prominent building that of the church:
We see Rosa (Zaide Silvia Gutierrez) looking into the home of the old sisters...
...and she is warned to leave them alone; they only appear when least expected. Meanwhile, the overseer has heard rumors of a secret meeting that night, and threatens a peasant's family if he doesn't cooperate, throwing in a few bucks as sweetener...
...and the informer reveals the meeting at an old hacienda, and takes the money:
At dinner, by candlelight because they have no access to electricity (or it is dangerous to be noticed by the authorities at night) Arturo confirms that he is going out soon...
...which concerns his wife Lupe, who knows what he is doing and it is dangerous:
We then see the some military jeeps with soldiers on the way to the hacienda:
Josefita and her husband Pedro join them, and she harangues them about the "North" where according to Good House Keeping magazine, even poor people have toilets that make things just "disappear," have cars, televisions and nice houses. Pedro tells her that he is becoming tired of her always talking about the "North":
Enrique, for one, is fascinated by these stories about the "North":
There is a knock and Rosa goes out to meet her "sweetheart" Luis:
Arturo soon has to leave, and his wife persuades Enrique to following him and try to stop him. Enrique's father tells him how the rich came from the "outside" and stole their lands, and that he's worked in many places, and it is always the same: to the rich, the Indian peasant is just a pair of arms to do the work to make them rich and themselves stay poor and landless. They treat their animals better than us. For many years we had been trying to tell them that we are human beings too:
Enrique wants to go with him, but Arturo tells him not yet, and tell his mother everything will be fine:
Arturo and his group discuss plans to fight with the help of the guerillas on the coast:
But they are ambushed by the soldiers:
Enrique hears gunfire and rushes out to find his father...
...who manages to disable one of the soldiers, but then is killed:
Enrique finds his father's followers killed...
...and then his decapitated head hanging in a tree...
...and then in a rage fights and kills a soldier who was hiding there. There is a funeral for the dead...
Later, Rosa discover that her mother and Enrique are missing, and Pedro and Josefita tell her that her mother had been taken by the soldiers, and her brother was also likely taken away. She must stay with them, they will protect her:
Later, Rosa encounters Enrique, who tells her he was hiding out in the mountains. They must go "North" so save their lives:
Rosa tells Josefita of their plans; Josefita always wanted to go to the "North," but she was too old now, and gives Rosa money for the trip, and she can go "North" in her place:
Enrique talks to an old hand who gives him some advice for the trip, telling him he has to talk like a "Mexican," using the "f-word" frequently and tell people that he is from Oaxaca where many indigenous people live, and to Mexicans all "Indians" look alike:
Rosa prays for help...
...and rushing away to join Enrique, she encounters the old sisters...
...but she no longer has time to be curious about them. She meets with Enrique and they cross the border under the cover of darkness. We next see them being discovered by a good-natured Mexican truck driver who allows them a ride if they help him fix his flat tire...
...and gets them on a bus to Tijuana:
The bus stops for the night for a nap, but Enrique notices that the driver is missing and the bus headlights are still on. He goes outside to see what is going on....
...and is accosted by the soldier he had killed:
But it was just a nightmare, as he is awakened by another passenger to announce they have just arrived in the "shit-hole of the world":
They are met by "coyotes" who assume that everyone going to Tijuana is trying to find a way to the U.S. for a price. Some are offering their services for $800 and another says he can do it for "just" $300:
Looking at the surroundings, Rosa and Enrique were not expecting to see this...
....but this:
Later they run into a conman who tells them they can cross over for nothing if they go with him, since he's crossing the border himself:
That night he leads them to the border, but then attacks Enrique to steal their money. Enrique gets the better of him, and the thief can't believe he went through all this trouble and they only have $20:
The thief hears a noise and runs off, and the flashlights of a couple of border patrol agents flash on Rosa and Enrique:
At the station questioning the pair, one of the agents thinks he can fool them into admitting that are not from Mexico, but is flummoxed when they speak to each other an their indigenous dialect. But it doesn't matter, they will be deported to Tijuana:
In Tijuana, Rosa steals food...
...and Enrique meets the coyote whose name was given to him by the man in Guatemala who was giving him advice on the trek north:
The coyote agrees to do it for $100 as a favor, and Enrique and Rosa must make some money for the trip. Rosa shows him their mother's silver necklaces that they can sell; Enrique doesn't want to sell them, but Rosa says they must if they want go North:
With the money to pay for the journey, the coyote says it is unsafe to go over the mountains, and he leads them to tunnel that leads to the other side:
Unfortunately, there are rats in the tunnel...
...which bite Rosa, the consequences of which will only be apparent later. Eventually they see a light at the end of the tunnel...
...and the coyote meets them on the other side after dodging a border patrol helicopter...
...and leads them to Los Angeles...
...and a motel run by Monte (Trinidad Silva), who pays the coyote what he thinks they are worth for a piece of their earnings for jobs he will find for them:
Monte shows Rosa and Enrique their new "home," which isn't exactly what they envisioned from the Good House Keeping magazines
:
The next day, Enrique is doing the day laborer routine, although he has to learn how to "sell" himself:
Rosa is sent to a sweatshop to learn how to iron clothing...
...while Enrique is the only one left without a job when a restaurant manager arrives...
.
..for work as a waiter at a fancy French restaurant...
...where he encounters another undocumented worker, Jorge, who ribs Carlos (Tony Plana) as a "pocho"--a Mexican-American who doesn't speak Spanish. This could mean trouble later:
Rosa accidentally burns some clothing while watching some women modeling the clothing made at the sweatshop, but Nacha (Lupe Ontiveros) takes pity on her...
...and takes her to a hair stylist. Returning to the motel, Enrique is skeptical, but Rosa thinks she looks like an "American" now...
...and they should start taking English classes; which Enrique decides may be is a good idea too:
Then we see Nacha and Rosa taking a job for a well-off family...
...and the "easy" operation of the lady of the house's new washer and dryer:
Unfortunately, Rosa is too confused about how to operate the washer, and washes the clothes in a sink, and then as she had done back home, leaves the clothes to dry outside with the predictable response from the owner:
Meanwhile, there is a need for a new waiter's assistant, and the restaurant manager offers Enrique the job, since he seems to have a good attitude...
...and this draws the ire of Carlos, who thinks he should have the job...
...after all, he is an American, and he has a "plan" to fix this problem. In the meantime, everything is looking up for Rosa and Enrique as she admires his new outfit:
But then he gets another job offer. Monte tells him that this woman owns a factory in Chicago and she is looking for someone as a foreman who can speak both English and Spanish and gets along with people. It's a great job and he's perfect for it...
...he'll even get s green card. But Enrique doesn't want to let down his current employer, or leave Rosa. He should have taken the job, because Carlos is calling immigration...
...and Enrique and Jorge are off to the races:
They manage to get away, but the weaselly Carlos gets what he wanted:
Meanwhile, things go from bad to worse. Rosa is feeling sick and Nacha takes her to a clinic...
...where we see rashes caused by the rat bites:
At a bar Jorge tells Enrique that it was Carlos who squealed on them, and you have to look out for yourself because there isn't as many jobs to go around anymore:
Carlos talks to Monte about the Chicago job, and convinces him to talk to the woman again about it, and she relents, and will wait for Enrique at the airport:
But just when things are looking up again, tragedy strikes. A lab report reveals that Rosa has murine typhus, and it has been too long a wait for her to recover, and her internal organs have been effected:
The doctor tells Nacha she must find Enrique,,,
Nacha finds Enrique, but he pleads with her to look after Rosa because he needs to leave for Chicago right then. Nacha implies he doesn't care that his sister is dying, and that he himself is "dead":
What will he do? We see the woman waiting at the airport, and we know that Enrique will not be joining her after all:
Enrique visits Rosa, telling her he won't leave her, even as she is dying:
It is back to day laborer...
...although this time Enrique has learned how to sell himself, announcing in English that he has "strong arms." While digging ditches at a construction site, he looks out into the empty desert...
...remembers the lush countryside back in his old home...
....but remembers why he can't go back:
It's unfortunate that we have to go back 40 years to find a film like this. We always see films about the troubles of white women and blacks, but when was the last time you saw a film about human beings from a Spanish-speaking country in this hemisphere experiencing prejudice and discrimination, or trying to escape violence and death and come to this country thinking that it was "safe" and a place that was a "dream" and not a nightmare? Of course in relative terms "the North" is a safer place than the one Rosa and Enrique were escaping from because their lives were in danger in Guatemala. During the first half of the 1980s with the help of Reagan administration, the Maya Genocide (which "technically" had been going for at least a century) by the Guatemalan military led to the killing of many tens of thousand of indigenous people on the mere suspicion that they may be aiding guerillas and insurgents, and hundreds of Maya villages were destroyed. That is the backdrop for Nava's film, and the fact that people of this country were insensitive to what was happening to places like Guatemala and El Salvador with the backing of Reagan administration should to be taken with the disgust it deserves.
El Norte was regarded as a modern-day "The Grapes of Wrath" by film critic Roger Ebert, but it is more than that, since it humanizes these people like is almost never done in this country, including by the so-called "liberal media" which only regards these people as a "mob" or a "mass" when not criminals, rapists and drug dealers. As pointed out before, this film is not really "dated" at all; the violence inflicted on these people then is not to be differentiated by the violence of gangs deported from the U.S., or the increase in cartel drug trafficking after the so-called "war on drugs" in Colombia which merely moved the "business" elsewhere to feed the U.S.' insatiable need for illegal drug. It is still the same reality for people who had suffered many decades of oppression from the ruling class and its armed thugs, particularly in Guatemala and El Salvador, where the indigenous people have suffered so long that they have this "dream" about the U.S. way of life that most "real" Americans take for granted--but more dream than reality.
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