El Norte

 I thought this movie represented the obstacles people face when immigrating to the United States. The United States tries to sell itself as a country where everyone has equal freedom and equality in terms of many different factors, but when you actually live here, it is a little different than what the promise was. One scene that particularly stuck with me and I think shows this idea really well is the scene where they say "even poor people have toilets and care in America". Once they came to America, they were able to see over the time they were there that being poor in America may get you a toilet and car, but other factors such as intersectionality can come into effect. Being poor and an immigrant created a larger amount of obstacles for them in their journey such as a language barrier and being unable to relate to others. I also thought about how this journey and film representation would have been different if they immigrated to a city that had more homelessness and showed more poverty. Coming from Portland where we have the largest homeless population in the United States, immigration is much less of a concern and poor people definitely don't have a toilet and a car. I think if they would have immigrated to Portland for example, they would have been maybe more realistic in what they could achieve and realize that the American dream is often just a dream for a lot of people. In Guatemala, they had a lot of hardships that were different than the ones that many Americans face, but both have a large impact in the moment for both groups of people. Though there were many barriers they had to overcome in the film, there were a lot of opportunities given to them. Their language barriers and lack of awareness as to how American society worked actually brought them two mentors that helped get them jobs, learn English, and they had someone who they could trust as undocumented immigrants. 

The American Dream: Changing? or Gone? | by Leia Ficks - Student | Voices | Medium

Comments

  1. Catherine BolzendahlMarch 11, 2023 at 2:06 PM

    Good observations and I appreciated especially the connection to Portland. I would have like to see you expand a bit more on that point. Do you mean that a lack of a large immigrant community would make it hard versus LA? At the end I'd have like to see you tie your points together with some kind of conclusion. Given the opportunities you identify, are these sufficient in light of the barriers?

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