Friday, October 11, 2019

O

This one...

https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/we-are-a-nation-of-immigrants-gregory-nava-on-his-masterpiece-el-norte-returning-to-theaters-this-sunday-september-15th

"During the Depression, our economic problems were being blamed, like always, on the immigrants. The Hoover administration had a policy of “real jobs for real Americans,” and since people of Mexican descent were not considered real Americans, between one and two million of them were deported in cattle cars to Mexico. A majority of them were citizens from the United States, and among them was my grandfather.

His deportation broke up my family. My father was raised without a father, and the pain of this forced separation haunts our family to this day.
I have relatives I didn't even know I had. I recently met one of my father’s sisters, who is now in her 90s. She was born in the United States and she doesn't speak English anymore. When I see families being separated on the border today, I know that the pain they generate will last for generations. So my idea for “El Norte” was born in the middle, at the border, but I understood that the border was simply part of a process. The story had to go deeper into Latin America, so you could understand the world where the people came from and why they had to leave it, as well as go deeper into el Norte—the United States—so that people could understand what happens to them after they arrive. "

~ G. Nava

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