I often forget about my early childhood and the language used in that time.
I hear them once in a while, at friends' houses, in the media, I see it online in other peoples' stories. It's at these moments that I get slapped with memories where these words are the central point.
These words being "el Norte" and "la Migra."
These two words that inspire such different images and reactions to different people at different times; words that were used throughout the film.
El Norte, to Rosa and Enrique means life, peace, and money. It is a place where Enrique could be that man his father wanted him to be. Not just a campesino, solo brazos para los ricos, but a man with a soul and heart.
I guess this is the reason most people cross the US-Mexico border. Because "El Norte" holds this promise of riches and peace and opportunity. This promise of providing a comfortable place to whoever manages to cross.
Whenever I heard "el Norte," it was somebody talking about a better life, about money, that was the pretty side of the words. Other children used to question me about my life in "el Norte," asking if it was as great as they were told it was. Some of them knew the other meaning of this word. They knew that as well as hope, el Norte meant leaving family behind, about terrible journeys and fear and the knowledge that sometimes, el Norte was synonymous to suffering.
The next word has no redeeming qualities.
La Migra.
It plants this seed of fear. It's immediate. I learned that people were to drop everything and run. Run because la Migra was there. Policia Migratoria - people who were there to snatch away that slight opportunity at a better life.
Both siblings had close calls. Rosa and Enrique both had to run for their lives, in a literal sense. A return to their native land meant death.
Back home, El Norte had no dark side to Enrique or Rosa. It was big houses and toilets and bright skies. La Migra didn't exist. The Migra only comes into existence when the border is crossed.
These two words have no translation that imparts the same feeling of hope and dread hold the whole life stories of thousands of people. A feat of language.
I love that you said that when Enrique and Rosa were at home all of the darkness of El Norte didn’t exit, that La Migra only came into being when the border was breached, because I think it represents the differences in perspective that span the entire film. El Norte represented their opportunity at a better life. However, these possibilities only came with struggles that continued on so far as to merge suffering and hope into the same word, the same place. The theme of placement- what embodies it and what it affords- changes and yet remains the same throughout their journey. When leaving San Pedro Enrique and Rosa were advised to pretend to be Mexican Indians because no one would really be able to spot the difference among native groups but they would notice their general difference. Then when in California they identified as Mexican, trying to leave the further social stigma of native behind all together, to gain the limited advantages being just Mexican would provide in a society that still saw them as different and treated them accordingly. They were still the same people as when they left San Pedro but they had been forced to adopt varying identities to appease others’ perceptions to merely survive. Their placement within specific boundaries changed and yet their overall status as marginalized people did not. Their hope to live as just people with hearts and souls, to be more than just a labor force did not change either though. In the toughest times it wavered under others’ expectations but it remained even with the knowledge that despite their best efforts, they did not belong. I believe that Rosa took this dream with her as she traveled on as Enrique stayed and continued to work. Rosa might have taken the dream of a better life when she left in death but I think that her ability to hope for so much while undertaking this new journey alone gave Enrique a new dream founded in her spirit as well as that of his father.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing that! I can totally relate. When I go home now, people tend to look at me in awe, asking about how America is. They are so happy for me because, in their eyes, I am living the dream. In many ways, I am, but very few people consider the difficulties that come with living outside your home country, especially, if like Rosa and Enrique, you don't have papers. This movie taught me a lot about how people struggle to get even the smallest opportunity to shoot for their dreams.
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