I saw a movie recently called “El Norte,” a poignant and disturbing story about two Guatemalan teen-agers, a brother and sister, who risk their lives to make the journey to “the north” — to America — and its promise of a better life.
Deceived by those who offer to help them, they endure hunger and exhaustion and thievery. Crawling through an abandoned sewer to avoid being seen by border guards, they’re attacked by rats. They face an even greater danger on this side of the border: a predatory economy in which illegal aliens prey on each other and gringos prey on everyone. In this fabled land, where, they had been assured, even the poorest of the poor have flush toilets, they get their toilet, in a rundown boarding house. Are they better off than they were in the misty mountains of Guatemala? When all you’ve known is hardship and deprivation, isn’t a little security — a paycheck, food — a kind of freedom? Is it better to be a peasant in a rich land than in a poor land? Isn’t a peasant anywhere, as Enrique’s father had warned him, just “another pair of arms?” Without stridency, “El Norte” compels you to ask such questions, for which there are no easy answers.
