A Day without a Mexican

A Day without a Mexican is nothing like I thought it would be. It is a mockumentary that deals with prejudice, ignorance, racism, what it means to be an alien (think UFO), friendship, pride and honesty. It's as good as a Michael Moore-type documentary only this one is so layered and nuanced yet in-your-face at the same time, that you have to laugh. I think it deserves an award.

On one day, all the Latinos in California disappear and everything begins to fall apart. Only one Latina is left, so a scientist wants to innoculate all the other Californians with the L-factor, so they won't disappear, too. No one can enter or leave California because a fog border has appeared that surrounds the state completely.

Think of California... and how TV (=Anglos) think that all Latinos or Hispanics are Mexican, when as the film tells us, there are 40 countries south of the border between the US and Mexico. Do you think that Hollywood is the biggest industry in California? Nope - it's agriculture. So the film teaches while it makes fun of how TV (=Anglos) have sterotyped people who have immigrated (legally or illegally) here from Spanish-speaking countries, or have been born here, first or second generation - and how California will cease to be as we know it if the Latinos were to leave.

You have to see this film. I cannot describe it and do it justice. It's very much in sync with The Day After Tomorrow as far as the U.S. and relations with Mexico are concerned. Oh, and the media get lampooned very well, too.

 

Media literacy education folks will appreciate the conclusion of the film: you don't see invisible people until they disappear.

When the main protagonist of the film finds out she was adopted from Armenia and raised by Mexican parents in California, she says, "You belong to the people who taught you the world." Amen.