Two Classic Latino Films Provide Answers

By Roberto Leal

Many Bend and Stoop, So Others Can Sit and Eat

This past Sunday was the premiere episode of MSNBC’s four-part, documentary; What’s Eating America? The mini-series takes an in-depth look at the American political landscape through the prism of food

The initial episode focused on who provides the food we eat in America. There were segments on strawberry pickers in the Salinas Valley, a Tyson chicken processing plant in Tennessee and crab workers in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. Not surprisingly, most of those laboring in the fields and food processing plants were undocumented and documented Latinos.

To paraphrase Captain Renault in Casablanca: “I’m shocked, shocked to find so many Mexicans working here.”

You shouldn’t be shocked, mon capitaine. It’s been this way since the Pilgrims, the first undocumented immigrants, landed on these shores. The Pilgrims had no idea how to farm or feed themselves. The Native Americans showed them how to plant corn, beans and squash.

The first Thanksgiving Day meal was prepared and served to the starving illegal aliens from England by Native Americans. A little-known historical fact is that those same generous Native Americans bussed the tables and washed the dishes afterward, as well. And what was their reward from this ungrateful caravan of “others” from across the pond? Smallpox.

Thus, the template for the settling and building of America was set in stone:  People of color doing the work those European “wetbacks”, susceptible to sunburn, won’t do. The segment highlighting the strawberry pickers in the Salinas Valley was an especially poignant one for me.

But the braceros life was hard. Spending all day on their knees, pushing a lug down between rows of strawberries was back-breaking work. All the farm workers, at that time, were exposed to DDT and other harmful chemical pesticides. Their horrible treatment, at the hands of the landowners, in later years, became the impetus for momentous changes.

Everything I Know, I Learned in the Movies

Salt of the Earth (1954)
This beautiful, gritty meditation on the struggles of Mexican zinc miners contemplating a general strike, by blacklisted screenwriter, Michael Wilson, is told through the eyes and voice of Esperanza Quintero (Rosauara Revueltas), the wife of one of the miners. Michael Wilson penned such Hollywood heavyweight films like Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes. But this low-budget, black and white gem had a special place in Wilson’s heart, who championed the rights of workers all his life.

In Salt of the Earth, it’s the women in the story; wives, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, led by Esperanza, who are the heart and soul of the successful strike. This feminist perspective foreshadows the incredible, indomitable spirit displayed, by Dolores Huerta, along with Cesar Chavez, in the historic Chicano and United Farm Worker Movement of the 60’s and 70’s.

A Day Without a Mexican (2004)
Multi-talented Mexican artist, Sergio Arau, wrote and directed this whimsical, satirical film that posits an all too ominous question: where the hell would California, not to mention the rest of the country, but especially Mar-a-Lago, Trump Tower and all the president’s golf courses be if all the Mexicans suddenly and mysteriously disappeared? Attorney General William Barr does all of Trump’s corrupt biddings. But I don’t think he would mow the White House lawn.

Arau’s A Day Without a Mexican, hilariously speculates how an apocalyptic California would totally disfunction and dissolve into a dystopian nightmare without a Mexican to keep the wheels of society turning. How would the descendants of those original undocumented Pilgrims, who snuck across the pond, function without a Mexican being a nanny for their bratty kids, cooking and cleaning for them and tending to their every need?

I can answer that from my present situation. I live in a retirement community in San Antonio, Texas. The kitchen and wait staff, the cleaning ladies and the maintenance men are all Mexicans. A day without these wonderful Latinos would be a sad one, indeed.

With the 2020 elections just around the corner, great Latino films like Salt of the Earth and A Day Without a Mexican, remind us of the major role Latinos play in the United States. Time to make it clear to those in power who refuse to listen. #LetsGetLoudLatinos.