Class Four - Immigration Issues

In Bread and Roses, Maya enters the United States illegally. At the end of the film, she's sent back to Mexico. While the primary focus of the movie is on unionization to get fair wages and healthcare for the workers, her experience highlights the plight of illegal immigrants.

There are numerous organizations on both sides of the issue of illegal immigration. It's a topic that often provokes heated debate. The Politics of Immigration provides a list of resources here which includes books, films and links to many groups such as Border Action Network, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and Families for Freedom.
I found some interesting teaching materials at Rethinking Schools. They offer a unit of materials based on the book The Line Between Us: Teaching about the Border and Mexican Immigration which includes activities such as this one.

Southern Poverty Law Center has a partial list of the major anti-immigration groups here. There's an interesting article at Politico.com about how some of the groups have sought to appeal to environmentalists and form an alliance. Writer Ben Adler notes:

Readers of the Nation and other left-leaning magazines may have noticed a new addition to the usual advertisements — full-page advocacy ads by an ad hoc coalition of anti-immigration organizations.

The ads place the blame for traffic and sprawl, frequent villains for urban-oriented members of the left, on population growth, another such villain. The kicker? That population growth is blamed on immigration.

The Sierra Club, a group originally founded to protect and preserve wilderness lands, was targeted by anti-immigration groups seeking to take over the Board of Directors. The unsuccessful attempt of a few years ago is described in this Christian Science Monitor article.

Were you surprised by any of the information you read in these links? Were any of the concerns of one side or the other more compelling to you?

Do you know anyone who is an immigrant, legal or otherwise? How many generations of your family have been born in America? Are you like me, a descendant of varied ancestors' different immigration dates? How does your own experience shape your perspective on the issue of immigration?


Did Pilar Padilla's portrayal of Maya's story change your attitude about immigration? If not, why not?
If yes, in what way?

Class Four - March 16: Bread and Roses

I found a great description of the film at Amazon.co.uk:

A fine piece of polemical cinema, Ken Loach's Bread and Roses tells the story of the successful "Justice for Janitors" campaign, which helped establish improved pay and working conditions for the largely Latin American unskilled workforce in Los Angeles. Pilar Padilla plays Maya, who, following a traumatic crossing of the Mexican border, manages to find her older sister Rosa and eventually find work as a janitor. There, she runs into labour organiser Sam (Adrien Brody) when he evades security guards in a comical, Keystone cop-chase through an office building. He persuades her to join his campaign and a tentative romance blossoms.

Bread and Roses is a "Hollywood" movie with a difference, filmed in and around corporate LA but homing in on the lives of the ignored army of grotesquely underpaid, often illegal immigrants who give the area its sheen. At times, the semi-documentary footage of meetings and demos slackens the dramatic pace and it's interesting that the film's strongest scene is when the sceptical Rosa cuts through her sister's pro-union spiel with a devastating speech about the realities of her own life (she had to work as a prostitute). While this an imperfect movie, its political point hits home hard. Brody as Sam in particular brings a streak of fun to the movie.

David Edelstein has written a really interesting piece about the film at Slate.com.

Political Film Society reviews the film here.

Britfilms reviews it here.

Atlanta Journal Constitution reviews it here.

There's a great interview with director Ken Loach here.

There's another one here which, although primarily about his Irish Civil War film, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, references Bread and Roses. It's well worth your time.

What did you think of the film?