A few weeks ago, Turner Classic Movies ran a night of films with Hispanic themes. Even better, several of them were set and filmed in New Mexico. Milagro Beanfield War and Salt of the Earth were already familiar to us. Another, And Now Miguel (1953), was entirely unfamiliar. Filmed as a documentary of rural Nuevomexicano life, the narration describes a young boys yearning to “go to the mountains”–that is, to go with the men to the summer shepherding grounds and, consequently, fulfill an important right of passage. Aspects of integration and migration are raised in subtle ways, and gender divisions between home and mountains are present, if not analyzed. Elias, surprisingly, was gripped by the young boy’s work with the family sheep.
The strange outlier among these films was a short, called “Give them the land.” The film depicted efforts of an American scientist to educate Mexican farmers on scientifically-informed methods of farming in the harsh Mexican deserts. Perhaps it is a bit of a nit to pick, since the rest of the films concerned Hispanics in the United States, and rural life in New Mexico is not necessarily comparable to that of rural Mexico.
Certain underlying messages distburbed. The short was a stunning visual document of farming practices. The scientist, of course, encounters various inefficiencies of agriculture methods, and he discusses how Americans can educate Mexican peasants in order to make land improvements. His approach: literally become “a good neighbor”, living among the peasants to serve as an example and compatriot. The good neighbor disarms opposition to innovation by living among Mexicans, offering advice and supplies for barter (some of the improved yields) rather than capital. In some sense, the good neighbor is socially assimilated, but culturally radical, working from within rather than as part of a hierarchy.
The final message puts the film into context: “We need him more than he needs us.” We need Mexicans (and by extension, subalterns) to become more efficient farmers rather than come to us for employment. It is a pro-development policy that carries an anti-immigration sentiment. It is, perhaps, little different from the thoughts and arguments that drive so-called free trade agreements, substituting the flow of people with the inverse flow of technology and capital. Indeed, the film begins with a soaring montage in which a message from the UN reaches the tiny village by telegraph, postman, and finally pidgeon, and ends with the peasant staying in his place, revealing how flows can be controlled.
June 4, 2009 at 4:47 am
Living now in a country of emigration I think your take is a bit uncharitable. Most Mexicans who emigrate to the US like most Kyrgyz who emigrate to Russia and Kazakhstan do so because they can not find work that will support them in their home countries. The economic infrastructure of these countries is insufficient to support their populations.
For the most part most labor migrants would rather stay in their home country if they could find comparably well paying work there. Kyrgyz politicians, intellectuals and students often lament the mass emigration of workers abroad. Indeed even returning labor migrants do so.
Developing domestic industry would be a preferable, although probably impossible even in the long term, alternative. My guess is the vast majority of Mexicans would prefer that Mexico be developed rather than have to emigrate to the US to find work. But, maybe I am just an anti-immigrant bigot?