American Society and Politics in Film

The story of Rosa and Enrique's journey gives insight into the trials and tribulations that immigrants from Mexico and Central America have to face on their way to "El Norte" as well as their experience once they arrive.  In the U.S., they are given the opportunity to survive whereas in Guatemala they would have been slaughtered by the government.   Unfortunately, the opportunity to survive and the opportunity to live are not the same thing.   Rosa and Enrique learned quickly that just because they are in the U.S. does not mean that their life will be any easier than it was previously.  They also learned that trust is not something to take for granted and people are not always what they seem.  Obviously the guy in Tijuana that robbed them was a wakeup call but another important learning opportunity for Enrique was when his server friend explained the difference between immigrants and natural-born Americans with heritage "south of the border".  Enrique thought th

This film highlighted the harsh reality of immigration to America; one filled with challenges, dangers, and deception. Although America is viewed as the land of opportunity, actually achieving the American Dream is difficult for many, especially immigrants who are not offered the same protections as citizens.  Enrique and Rosa, the two main characters in the film arrive in America as immigrants after losing their father to a violent Guatemalan army; however, the journey to el Norte wasn't the sole challenge Rosa and Enrique faced after losing their father. Upon arriving to America, Rosa and Enrique can't escape their past; Enrique runs from near deportations while working as Rosa worries about seeking medical treatment in fear of being deported. Rosa's hesitation eventually led to her death, as the disease she contracted while crossing the border had progressed too far. Just before she dies, Rosa is speaking to Enrique and wonders where they consider their "home."

The show Reservation Dogs is done brilliantly; It allows its viewers to immerse themselves in Native American reservation life of the 21st century while poking fun of classic clichés used to portray Native life. These clichés were initially shown to the viewers, but then turned on their head when the audience was introduced to the lifestyles of the main characters of the show. Reservation Dogs showcased the true lifestyle of Native Americans on reservation land: areas considered to be food deserts, lack proper healthcare, and are often neglected. In the second episode of the show, the lack of adequate healthcare is highlighted when some of the characters visit the Indian Health Clinic (IHC). Bear, one of the main characters, is jumped which leads him to seek the clinic's services. Cheese has his eyes dilated after a health professional realizes his eyesight has not been checked routinely. In addition, Elora has stomach pains which lead her to seek medical assistance. While at the c

  Reservation Dogs is a tv series focused on the lives of a group of adolescents living on a reservation. The Native American life portrayed in Reservation Dogs is at often points bleak, contradictory, and soul crushing . The main goal of the focus characters to leave for California before the place kills them as it killed one of their friends serves as their motivation but also serves to set the underlying stakes of Native American issues, which are largely set aside in American politics. While this seriousness is established, the show is largely a comedy. This status for the show is not in contradiction to the seriousness of the topic covered, but instead recognizing and adapting to that fact. That the policies America undertook to remove Native Americans from their lands were brutal and leave America responsible for considerable poverty through the failures of the reservation system is not the sole problem. There is also the compounding issue that America has not yet come to terms w

The show, Reservation Dogs, portrays Native American life in a very accurate way. It focuses on the hardships that individuals face that live on a reservation, however, it represents this in a comedic and impactful way. The show embraces the stereotypes often put on Native Americans in order to better illustrate how their lives actually are. Embracing these stereotypes also allows the audience to address their own misconceptions.  I do not have many expectations for the Native American experience. I, myself, have never visited a reservation or had much experience with Native American culture. Because of this, I was able to watch the show with a completely open mind and learn from the examples shown. Learning bits about Native American culture with the young cast was a fun experience and an enjoyable watch.       The episode I was surprised with was second episode of the season, "NDN Clinic". The lack of specialized medical attention and the behavior exhibited by the healt

El Norte is a film about a brother and sister’s journey from a small Guatemalan village north to the US, where they hope to have a better life. While there they face many of the problems Latin American immigrants face in the US. To migrants, the US provides the opportunity of work and some degree of safety while at the same time the US actively creates barriers for immigrants. This was displayed in the movie by Enrique and Rosa not having official documents which greatly limited their job opportunities and limited where they could live. ICE was also a constant threat to Enrique and Rosa along with the people they worked with, such as Enrique’s coworker who reported him to immigration. Later generation migrants tend to contribute to an idealized version of the US that was portrayed by the villagers’ more positive description of the US. In this idealized version, immigration to the US is an easy process and once in the US wealth is abundant for those who try hard. In reality, living in t

  Maddie D Reservation dogs was more comedic and relatable than I anticipated, but still pushed forward themes and ideas that surprised me, expanded my perspective, and made me think. This show is written so well, and I love how it asks most of its audience to reflect on their own understanding of present day US reservations and Native Americans through a mix of light hearted and heavy subjects.  A scene that stood out to me was Rita's conversation with her one night stand. Everything seems to be going well as as they chat in the morning until he rolls up his sleeve to reveal a confederate flag tattoo with "Indian" feathers next to it. This is a shocking reminder to the audience (and Rita) that this man's whiteness and experience blinds him to the hurting and humanity of others. He clearly has strong biases that allow him to tokenize and look down on Indigenous people while believing he is entitled to his place in the world. This was upsetting to me because I know peo

 In connection to the other films, I thought this show represented a lot of unity and togetherness within the characters. The group had to all stay together to progress and questions of leaving versus staying to help the community also came up, specifically for Bear. I thought it was really important that the entire cast and anyone who helped create the film were Native American or Indigenous because of the lack of opportunities they often have and the educational aspect behind it. Growing up and going to school during the years of K-8, kids don't normally learn about Native American culture or history. If you're lucky to learn about them while in school, it is usually pretty vague. I don't remember learning about the history that much, but I do remember a period where we discussed the culture and why some things are important that may not be to ourselves. I think that community gets left behind and forgotten a lot and people are uncomfortable discussing that. The most prom

The aspect of this show that was the most surprising—but sadly, should not have been—is the normality of the people’s lives living on a reservation. I think that the large majority of Americans have never had first-hand experience with Indian reservations. We are stuck with this romantic, 19th centu ry idea of Native Americans that doesn’t exist anymore; and even worse, we are fine with maintaining that stereotype instead of acknowledging the fact that we still have Indigenous people living here in the US and that we don’t know what their current lives and problems are . The show was comedic, but it also highlighted real issues of Native life: for example, the lack of sufficient healthcare/medical services , as there was one doctor for everything . One of the articles mentioned the continuing lack of access to clean water in the Colorado River Basin, even though the tribal nations have rights to it. Issues like these are always pushed into the background in the US, which makes them

This show gives outsiders a glimpse of reservation life and what it means to be a Native American/Indian/Indigenous person in the 21st century.  By watching this show, I realized how wrong my expectations were and how much I do not know about reservation life and the Indigenous culture as a whole.  What I was most familiar with were the references to ancestry and the elders that the main characters interacted with in their town.  As explained by Sterlin Harjo, the William Spirit Knifeman character was an attempt to play into the stereotypes of what non-Native people think they know about Native culture.  It also emphasizes the importance of the ancestors and spiritual  magic that are still prominent in Native society while also poking a bit of fun at it.  This character seems to represent the series as a whole in how he is comedic and relatable yet also very integrated into Native culture and tradition.  This is the perfect opportunity for viewers of Reservoir Dogs to "laugh with&

  This show was brilliantly done. I love how it portrays all the joy, love, hardship, and friendship that the characters have. It paints a greater picture than what we usually hear about Native life. Through the lives of these young teenagers growing up there is a lot of the show that is super relatable, they are navigating friendships, parents, new hormones, and that all shine through. However, the show also highlights the extra layers of challenges these teenagers are facing while growing up on a reservation. The medical system is extremely underfunded and understaffed, their only option to make decent money is through theft, most of everyone's parents are separated or dead, and they are all living in poverty. These teens are forced to navigate learning about their culture and how to honor it and then also the reality of living in a place with a lot of dead ends. I hadn’t realized what a tight-knit community life on a reservation would be like. When Cheese goes to the doctor and

The show Reservation Dogs portrays a group of young teens on an Indian reservation struggling with cultural identities. More specifically, the ties between their Native heritage and being submersed in pop culture. This show exhibits multiple scenes of classic Native ideas. We can see that when their friend Daniel has his memorial, they burn things for smoke and ‘wash’ themselves in it. This practice can also be seen in their cultural heritage and the kids want to keep that tradition around. On a less serious note, we also see the more intended comical side of what people think about Native American life. Multiple scenes have a ‘traditional Native man’ where an Indian in classic clothing and feathers appears. Tied with this traditional look, he also is portrayed as a comical character who is not taken very seriously and does funny things for laughs. Similarly, there is also a scene where the kids visit one of their uncles who is very fond of smoking and getting high. They turn the scene

 Hannah Crouser  This show portrays Native American life for what it truly is. Hollywood has been portraying Native Americans through stereotypes since the beginning, but this show reflects on the hardships Natives who live on reservations face today. One episode I particularly enjoyed, and found interesting, was one where they were having a concert for diabetes in the Native American population. Native Americans are two times as likely to get diabetes than non-natives. This speaks to the lack of healthcare that is offered to Native Americans, as well as showcases the injustices that they have been handed. I found it interesting that the community's plan was to sell fry bread at this event to raise money, when fry bread is one of the reasons so many Native Americans develop diabetes. Fry bread was a food created out of necessity. When Native Americans were forced out of their home the ingredients to make fry bread were all that they were given, but the ingredients are not that heal

 With work being crucial to the well being of society, it is important the the rights of workers are protected within their workplace. It has been evidenced throughout society that when either the state or the business itself has total control over its workers, there is a strong potential for abuse. Rather than caring about rights of the workers, many companies simply care about profit. This leads to underpaid workers and an unhealthy society.  In order to protect the rights of workers, it is important to balance the control that the state and business have over their employees. State regulations must be followed, while businesses still have freedoms to run their businesses as they choose. In addition, "workers can leverage their power to negotiate better wages and working conditions" through forming unions (Pelles and Barber, 2022). Such actions were shown in the film  Norma Rae  (set in the 1970s) and continue today. An example of this is when a handful of Starbucks workers

            From my perspective, the success of labor is ethical work practices that both benefit the workplace and the workers themselves. I believe that belief in the marketplace and/or government action to ensure the success of labor is not well placed at all. The marketplace, itself, does not care about the success of labor or the ethicalness of that labor. If given the opportunity, corporations would not give benefits to their workers and would give them the lowest wage possible. Their goal is maximum profit, not their employees.       We see numerous examples of this today. In the United States, you have the Walt Disney Company, which provides an enormous amount of jobs to the Orlando area, refusing to up the wages of Disney World park employees by even one cent in recent union negotiations. Even though Disney World ticket prices are increasing for customers, their employees are still being underpaid.       Because corporations cannot take advantage of United States labor as much

 Maddie D  The question put forward in class for reflection on “Norma Rae” states, “how well-placed is belief in the marketplace and/or government action to ensure the success of labor?” Approaching this question forced me to define what I believe “success of labor” to be. For companies and the government, success of labor would mean tasks and jobs are completed in a satisfactory manner within an ideal timeframe to make the most revenue. For me and many employees, I think success in labor would look like having pride and dignity in work, being paid and treated well, and completing the work that needs to be done. I believe both of these definitions of success can be true simultaneously, but as discussed in class and seen in the film “Norma Rae,” historically and currently employees have been denied fair treatment. It seems that often the power given to the market and the government is too much and ends up allowing for employee abuse. Unions are important because they offer employees som

Norma Rae is a film which follows a character by the same name as she and a union organizer attempt to unionize the textile mill where she works. The film also raises a question of responsibility for the economic well-being of the public through the poor conditions at the mill and visible government intervention in the ways Mr. Warshowsky can threaten legal action as a union organizer. The government has taken interest in the unionization process, as we can see in the film, but are not specifically interested in preventing the mistreatment that the employees are experiencing. Nor is the government intervention we see in the film particularly interested in the success of the union; the government interest is instead that the process is conducted without major disturbance. The government would intervene when the business encourages white employees to target black employees, which starts a fight in the movie, but Norma Rae is eventually arrested for causing a disturbance when she stands o

How … how did I like it? Well I watched the first four episodes and I enjoyed them. The show covers a variety of interesting topics. I like how the show incorporates spirituality in a show that follows teenagers. I know that is not the main point of the show but I think the spirit that Bear sees is a clever addition. On the topic of spirituality, in the third episode I liked how Uncle Brownie started out as a grumpy hermit and grew into a teacher for the Rez Dogs. Also in that episode, I enjoyed how Brownie reacted to the legalization of marijuana and how Brownie and some of the other adults attributed a spiritual aspect to marijuana. Another theme I noticed a few times was the issue of race. I especially enjoyed how the show depicted the part where Bear’s mother encountered the rich racist. Also, the conversation between the two white people who hit the deer portrays exactly how white people tend to think of reservations and Native Americans. Overall, I am enjoying how this show combi

Belief in the government to ensure the success of labor unions should be well-placed, but in reality—or in the reality of the US—it is not well-placed. Especially with our current Senate, the US government is no t pro-labor. With such division in US politics it is hard to pass any legislation, much less pro-labor or pro-union laws. We are unable to rely on the government to fight poverty or protect the labor force as the article “Poor People are Gonna Rise Up” describes, saying how “during the past forty years, the share of earnings for the nation’s top 1 percent has doubled, while the wages for 90 percent of workers have barely kept up with inflation” . There is obviously a huge division between the social classes, but the government has not prioritized regulating business to protect la bor, which leaves it to the labor force to stand up for their rights. This is shown in the film “Norma Rae”, where the town initially didn’t support the union, the church didn’t support the union

  As demonstrated in the movie Norma Rae, without a regulated market or government regulation, labor workers are easily abused. The film did a great job of highlighting the difficulties the workers face in the textile industry in a town where that was the only job for almost everyone. The fear of standing up and being fired raised the stakes for many people and created a divide in who was willing to risk it all for better conditions. It was interesting to see that the black workers and most of the women workers were the ones pushing for the union the most. We can see that these groups are already being so oppressed that they might have less fear of getting fired than pushing for a union because they are already extremely taken advantage of. When in reality everyone wins if they can all come together. Another thing we have seen portrayed in the film and other films we have watched so far is the division of identities to separate the levels of oppression so each group feels like they ha

 This film showed the importance and impact having a group of people come together and really believing in the same cause. Workers have been overworked and payed a lot less than they deserve for a really long time and all across the world. They are often given no breaks, no or little time off, and have to work in horrible conditions for long hours. This takes a large toll on their mental and physical health. To ensure the success of labor for both the organization and the employees, they need to be able to communicate effectively and be perceptive to what is going on around them. The film showed a complete lack of respect from the employer to the employees. The boss knew they had to work in order to put food on the table for their families and knew that it was pretty much the only place they could work in town. This allowed them to make the working conditions even worse and overwork them even to death as Norma Rae's father died while on the job. If everyone can rally together to ma

Based on the inequities seen in the film, it is clear that there are benefits to regulated markets and industries, however, it seems optimistic to rely on the government or marketplace to ensure the success of labor.  The employees at the textile industry portrayed in the film were not getting any help from anyone before Reuben came in and educated them about the power of a union.  The marketplace was exploiting them because they knew they could and the government was likely unaware of the situation or, like the employers, did not care.  Luckily, the union serves as a safeguard for employees who are not treated fairly.  It also allows for the employees to have direct influence on what will happen next.  This was very important for the characters in the movie because they did not have much control over their work life to begin with.  They were also all pretty stubborn and burnt out from a lifetime of grueling work but once they saw the value of banding together towards better circumstan

  Regulated markets and industries have a few benefits to them, but it also has its disadvantages. We see increased efficiency, competition, and definitely discouragement or prevention of exploitation of the consumer. Regulated market does prevent people from doing whatever they want, this also means it prevents people from price gouging or anything that ruins the consumer. As stated, there are issues with both extremes: a totally free market outside of the government and a completely government regulated market. Either extreme has its respected consequences as seen in history. The leading to government regulated markets has also led to unions being created. The government and employers do not treat the employees with the recognized proper respect. Being burnt out, the workers in the film fought for not only better working conditions and better wages, but also to be treated as humans and not simple labor. Unions form in order to be seen and heard. They want to get their message out and