RP3: The Mountains and the Sewers in "El Norte"

The film "El Norte" gives us a stark picture of Enrique and Rosa's journey to find/make a home for themselves in the world. It is a deeply sad story and a very moving film. A few of the major themes I see in the film are identity, community, home, family, separation, and loss. While there is a lot of symbolism throughout the movie, I want to focus in on one symbol/parallel/analogy that especially stuck out to me as being very significant.

Aside from the scene with the vicious rats, what stood out to me most about the actual crossing of the border was that, to paraphrase what the coyote (I think his name was Jorge?) said, most people want (or choose) to cross the border through the mountains, but the sewers are much safer. He went on to describe just how hellish the sewers were. This was striking for a number of reasons. Also, many elements of the crossing seem to run parallel to the larger story.

At first, Rosa and Enrique appear to have two choices: they could take the mountains or the sewers. But ultimately it turns out that they have no choice at all- they know they cannot take the unnecessarily risk (of likely death) that the mountains pose. And so, instead of crossing the border by land – which, although it is not their People's land, would undoubtedly be a more comfortable conduit for travel if it was safe, – they must crawl through the sewer, an urban piece of infrastructure used to carry human waste and dirty water from place to place. This is not only terrifying (because of the rats, the dark, the helicopter, the smell, the miles of crawling), but is a very dehumanizing thing to experience. Enrique and Rosa are forced (by violence/politics/colonialism/etc.) to leave their home and then are again forced (by the limited travel options available due again to violence/politics/colonialism) to go through scary and disgusting tunnels to escape from certain death and move towards an uncertain life. The lack of choice between mountains and sewer, as well as the sewer scene, forebode the difficulties they will face in the United States, the 'land of opportunity' in which they will feel that, as Rosa says, "no somos libres."

The initial paraphrased quote also makes me wonder, if the sewers are so much safer than the mountains, why people would choose the more dangerous route. I think it is because of how dehumanizing and degrading it would feel to crawl through the sewers, not to mention how scary and physically uncomfortable it would be. This might be extrapolating a bit, but it seems like this is related to the apparent need, upon entry into the U.S., to assimilate into and accept a variety of dominant cultural practices that feel inappropriate (ex: using the stove instead of the comal), uncomfortable (ex: the doctor lifting Rosa's shirt in the ER), or just plain wrong/incorrect (ex: washing laundry in the washer/dryer). So, according to the coyote, many people would rather stay true to who they are and where they are from, even with the risk of death, than get across the border (or get the job, or get medical help, etc.) by a physically safer route, at the risk of losing parts of themselves.

The final incredible (not in a good way) thing about this scene is that, although it appears to be the safer way to go, Rosa still ends up dying because of contracting a disease from the rats that attacked them in the sewers (and from her inability to get medical attention sooner due to many many factors- la Migra, the language barrier probably, etc.) But this fact heightens the emotional intensity around the loss of their home and family, integral parts of who Enrique and Rosa are. It is not just that they cannot find a safe place to call home, but that the journey to get there is actually fatal. The rats in the sewer killed Rosa. The border killed Rosa.