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La Voz Nueva
La Americana – the human story behind the issue of immigration
Don Bain
Making the circuit of current film festivals across the country and around the world is a 65-minute piece titled La Americana. The documentary looks at the case of one Bolivian who immigrated to the U.S. illegally, why she did and the price she paid to support her ailing daughter. It is a story repeated thousands of times in thousands of different ways throughout the country.
“I think every immigrant’s story is different and I think we’ve painted it with a broad brush,” said director Nicholas Bruckman. “In the short time it’s been showing, immigrants have been coming up to us at screenings and saying, ‘Thanks for telling my story.’ That reaction made us feel we are telling a universal story. Of course every case is different, but over and over people have come up to me and said I came because my daughter, my nephew, my mother was ill or because a relative of mine is in jail and the system is corrupt and there’s no money in the family to bail them out. The idea is people come for extenuating circumstances and not income – especially from undeveloped countries.”
Chances are the most virulent critics and prosecutors of illegal immigration would make the very same choices if only they were wearing the immigrant’s shoes. How can anyone not understand the human drive to do whatever it takes to take care of family – even if it means crossing an international border furtively?
“When you’re in the position of having to leave your family behind, in a position where you need to travel, often laws and borders will not prevent you from doing what you need to do for your family,” Bruckman said. “That’s one of the key messages of the film.”
The life of Maria del Carmen Rojas is completely changed when her nine-year-old daughter is run over by a bus, breaking her hip and causing permanent injuries, which will confine her to a wheelchair for life. Carmen has no money to pay for her care and a full day’s work in Bolivia only nets her $10. So she tries to get a work visa for the U.S.
When those efforts fail, she flies to Mexico and hires a ride across the border in the trunk of a tiny commuter car, nearly suffocating in the process. From San Diego she flies to New York, where she works hard taking care of people and their pets or working as a cleaning lady while sending money home and saving all she can.
For six years she is completely separate from her family, friends and all she has ever known in a strange country whose language she doesn’t speak. Her heart weighs heavy with this separation and isolation each and every day.
“We tried as much as possible to make this film not about the issue of immigration but about this family. We hope just like in a fiction film, we’ve created a story with characters that draw you into her story so you can understand, empathize with her and see yourself doing what she did in her position.”
Bruckman’s film does not suggest a solution to the problem of illegal immigration but succeeds in putting a human face on the equation. The subject of immigration is not comprised of numbers, statistics and lines on the map – it is a matter of people, families, economics and survival.
“The U.S. has had less illegal immigration in 2007 and so far in 2008 than in previous years. Significantly fewer immigrants are coming because there’s less work here. The things that motivate people to move around are always economic. It’s always globalization. Any conservative will tell you they bring the work to where labor is cheapest and unless they are prohibited, people will always come to where their work is most valuable,” Bruckman concluded.
La Americana will run during the Denver International Film Festival this week at 8 p.m. Nov. 19 and 20 in the STARZ Film Center on the Auraria Campus. The film will show along with The Border Wall, an uncompromising investigation into the potential repercussions of the proposal to erect 670 miles of fence, splitting private properties, communities and wildlife reserves in two – and perhaps needlessly.
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