Just watched quite a complex movie, full of symbolism in simple scenes. If you know me, you know that I'm not a fan of movies simply because they require a ton of patience that I'm usually not willing to give.
Well, at the end of this one, I cried... It's been a while.
If you have a job, thank your lucky stars. If you don't worry about your next meal, thank them too. If you don't have to worry about your livelihood day by day, if your life isn't full of constant threats of safety, thank them yet again.
So the plot was basic. Border town, drugs being crossed without knowing. Yet complex in it all too. With an adopted sister in a white family, with the main characters being gay and realizing they kinda can't live without each other and never really could, and with issues of identity and what it means to be "____" splashed liberally throughout the movie.
It made me cry because it struck cords with me deep within my heart, cheesy as it sounds.
Made me think of human trafficking, and more importantly, made me think of modern day trafficking, drugs and human. And how there are no winners.
Obviously, growing up in a border town and my Mother being very good about not sheltering me from the world, I'm no stranger to how the drug trade works, how it changes societies, how humans looking for "better lives" will risk it all. And I'm no stranger to looking the other way as shit hits the fan right in front of you. Not something every young child has to go through. Especially when you're considered Mexican by your peers, and you never rat out your peers or their family.
It made me think deep and hard again about how all this mess affects people. It made me think of the fucked up side of human greed, the prevalence of the search for wealth and the securing of resources. And how all of that plays out into daily lives and how that affects the lived realities of those involved, especially children.
You learn quick in a border town, which oddly can be quite polarized. You are ostracized by some for speaking Spanish, you are ostracized by others for not. And then the issues of identity get all wrapped up in the chaos. Meanwhile, the human and drug trade stay strong, while the border towns suffer. Because outside of these border towns, the reality isn't close enough, it isn't as tangible, it isn't as "important" as those poor saps who have to fear for their safety. After all, your family isn't separated by an imaginary national border. After all, they aren't the ones being killed senselessly because they just happened to go out to a restaurant or to watch a movie.
So the violence starts. And the complexity of nationalism begins. Nationalism doesn't disgust me because it gives a sense of pride, a sense of identity, a sense of culture to people. Nationalism upsets me because you can be only one. There is no room within nationalism in the definition of what it means to be "________" to account for the multiplicity of cultures and ideas to flow freely and actually work. Before you say that well the U.S. is such a great diverse country with tons of cultures and people from different countries, think about this: Why then are most folks expected to speak English? Why are certain rights granted to those born there and not those living there? Why do many people who come from other places value assimilation into American culture for their children? My main question is, if the U.S. is so great like many claim it to be, then why must you still fit many of these categories solely to participate fully in this type of nationalism? Why can't you keep your culture and language and ideologies if the U.S. is so great and the "best nation in the world." Shouldn't the greatest thing in the world value everything? Perhaps that's an over simplistic ideology seeping in.
But I'm not only thinking of nationalism. This movie made me angry. It gave me some real perspective to my life directly. It made me furious because I get so sick of all the statistics, of all the reports, of all the academia, of all the human rights groups, of all the bible beating do gooders, of all the concerned mother's of "insert here" and of all those who claim to give so much, but only to an extent, and only if they do x y and z, and only if they're like this, and only if I get something out of it, and only if I can prove my money's/resources are being used for the "best use possible."
It made me cry because I saw how unnecessarily difficult life has to be for some folks. We, and I include myself in this, have all the resources in the world for everyone to live comfortably, everyone to be well fed, everyone to be warm and housed comfortably, and everyone to essentially be happy. But greed is a dirty lover who never uses protection and seeks only their pleasure without return.
So it made me cry because I thought of those folks on the other side of my border town, those who are murdered, daily still, those folks who have become a statistic, those kids who now walk in fear as they go to the grocery store. And although "la vida tiene que seguir" living in constant fear can arguably be not living at all. And we have all the power to change that, all the power to do something about it. But instead, we blog and hope it all goes away, instead we pray, and wake up to our decent lives the next day, instead, we glut over massive amounts of food and throw what we don't want away, and instead we make bajillions of dollars, but hoard it all in our bank accounts because we need it for a rainy day, and instead, we tell our children that they should be grateful for what they have instead of telling them how they can and should help others, and instead, we simply hope that those sad stories we hear about don't ever happen to us or our loved ones.
But if we're ever willing to change, if we're ever hoping to become better people who truly help each other and "make the world a better place," then I think we need to start listening. I think we need to turn off the news. I think we need to go out there in the world and make ourselves useful and see what all the commotion is about and not let others make up our minds for us. We need to learn from others. We need to not hoard our resources, we must not hoard our money. The idea of "well, if I give it, then everyone will take it and I'll be left with nothing" is flawed. Because if everyone thinks like that, then we get greedy. Then we consume more than we need to because "what if" and then we begin to create those horrors in real life for our world without even knowing that we were the ones responsible for it all. So take a moment to think about your actions. How every little thing, no matter how minute, affects the whole world. A big task indeed, but not impossible. And in the quest to help others, don't forget to remember to learn about yourself. Knowledge, and especially self-knowledge can change the world. Okay, my rant and tears are out in the open now. Time to start up the ideological cogs in my head again and figure out what I can do to contribute to the unnecessary waste in the world.
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