California without Mexicans?! As unbelievable as that sounds, it’s the basis for the comic fantasy A Day Without A Mexican, directed by Sergio Arau and co-written by Arau, Yareli Arizmendi, and Sergio Guerrero. The movie debuted in California in May and opens in wider release throughout the summer.
A Day Without a Mexican begins when a mysterious fog surrounds the entire state of California and one by one every Latino goes missing. (“Mexican” in the film includes not only Mexicans but all Latinos from Central and South America as well. The joke is that most white people in the film seem not to know the difference and treat all Latinos the same.)
Chaos unfolds as a senator’s family struggles to get breakfast ready and laundry done without Catalina, the domestic worker. A farmer worries about losing his crop without pickers. People ransack grocery stores for the last fruits and vegetables. Some white bigots celebrate the disappearances with a barbecue. Politicians in Sacramento call a state of emergency.
A heroine’s quest for her people. The story of the “mockumentary” centers around Lila Rodriguez (played by co-writer Arizmendi), a television reporter who is the only Mexican American to survive the disaster.
To find the solution to bringing her people back, she donates her body to science and, under the watchful eyes of the U.S. military and government, endures grueling experiments.
After learning that there really is no sincere intent to restore her people, Lila escapes from the hospital. Hoping to find answers, she sets out to cross through the fog at the border of the United States and Mexico. She yells, “I must find out where they are and bring them back!” as INS agents stop her.
After Lila is forcibly returned to the hospital, the viewer learns the reason that Lila did not disappear along with other Chicanos and Latinos — in a surprising and moving twist that will not be revealed here!
Chilling implications. Along with the comedy and plot, the film serves up statistics about California and the one third of its people who are Latino.
It may not be too hard to imagine what the absence of every Latino would do to agriculture, the state’s top industry. But the movie provides other facts that fill in the picture. Gone would be 20 percent of K-12 teachers and 60 percent of construction workers.
Also gone would be the $100 billion that Latinos contribute to the California economy.
In truth, the state would go belly up without the cheap labor of Latinos and their spending as consumers.
Despite this, the economic, political, social and cultural contributions of Latinos are neither valued nor acknowledged. Instead, Latino/a labor is made invisible. Or worse yet, many people at times buy into the stereotypes, seeing Latinos only as criminals who terrorize the streets, or as welfare mothers and “illegal aliens” who mooch off the system.
A Day Without a Mexican ends with the fog miraculously lifting and all the Mexicanos and Latinos beginning to reappear. California’s crisis comes to an end and everyone is overjoyed.
This includes even the U.S. border patrol agents. The INS is portrayed as caring about how Mexicans are treated, an event that would be extremely unlikely outside of the movies.
Reality check. What is happening in actual life?
According to the Los Angeles Times, border patrol officers in Southern California have been increasingly questioning and arresting Latinos. More than 100 Latinos recently have been arrested while getting off public buses, shopping in grocery stores, or simply resting in their homes.
Racial profiling and roundups of Latinos under the guise of fighting the bogus “war against terrorism” tear families apart. Latinos in California are vanishing before our very eyes. The fog of bigotry is indeed very thick in California.
A Day Without a Mexican doesn’t pretend to give all the answers. Instead, it uses satire to show how immigrants and Mexicans and all Latinos in the United States are human beings who built, and continue to build, this nation. And it is high time that society learned to value their contributions.
The movie has generated controversy, but as a Latina and an activist, I wasn’t offended by its satiric humor. In fact, my stomach hurt at times because I couldn’t stop laughing. I appreciated its sharpness in exposing the ironies that in reality wouldn’t be so funny: untended leaf blowers spinning out of control, restaurant owners panicking because they have to wash dishes. It shows that if the cheap labor of all immigrants did evaporate one day, businesses would be living a nightmare — especially agribusiness.
So, if you want to see a film with sidesplitting comedy that doesn’t insult your intelligence, and in fact challenges it, go spend an afternoon or evening Without a Mexican.
Tenant organizer Yuisa Gimeno of Los Angeles is the daughter of a Mexicana/Salvadoran activist mom.
She can be reached at yuisa5379@yahoo.com.
