‘Brooklyn’ and ‘A Better Life’: Two Immigrant Movies For A Divided Nation
The republican party, devoid of any accomplishments worth bragging about (aside from an economic boom that began early in Barack Obama’s presidency), are hoping to make illegal immigration the centerpiece of the 2018 midterm elections. Or, more accurately, the GOP is doubling down on the racism (oops, I mean “racial anxiety”) that fueled Donald Trump’s candidacy and is the most galvanizing, unifying issue for the party’s almost exclusively white, largely rural base.
The best example of republicans’ strategy can be found in the conservative media’s truly repugnant, ghoulish obsession with the death of 20-year-old Iowan Mollie Tibbetts solely because the man charged with her murder appears to be an illegal immigrant from Mexico. Despite Tibbetts’ father’s support for Iowa’s immigrant community and his pleas for her death not to be politicized, republicans like Newt Gingrich want to ensure that “Mollie Tibbetts is a household name” and a rallying dog whistle to enflame their base and help the GOP keep control of congress. Meanwhile, yet another mass shooting committed by an American (the 234th in 2018 so far) and a white American-born Colorado man charged with murdering his pregnant wife and two young daughters draws only silence from republicans, or the near-silence of “thoughts and prayers”. Because, you see, those killers are supposed to be here.
As usual, all this got me thinking about movies that might provide some perspective on this moment. Specifically, it made me think about two very different movies about immigrants — 2011’s A Better Life and 2015’s Brooklyn — and the very different immigrants they portray. In 2018, it’s hard not to see these films through a political lens, comparing the differing ways democrats and republicans think about and empathize with the struggles immigrants face.
‘A Better Life’: A Realistic Immigrant Republicans Don’t Believe In
Directed by Chris Weitz and starring Mexican superstar Demian Bichir and newcomer José Julian, A Better Life takes place in modern-day Los Angeles. Bichir plays Carlos, a gardener/groundskeeper from Mexico who has been living and working in the US illegally for many years, spending every long day beautifying the yards of LA’s rich and famous so he can provide for his American-born teenage son Luis (Julian). When Carlos’ employer offers to sell Carlos his pickup truck and landscaping equipment, Luis sees an opportunity to own his own business and make enough money to move to a better school district, giving Luis a greater chance to succeed in life while distancing him from the gangs looking to recruit him. But when the truck gets stolen soon after Carlos buys it, he and Luis must embark on a trek — by bus and on foot — across LA’s Mexican neighborhoods attempting to track it down, knowing that Carlos’ immigration status makes police involvement not only impossible, but a grave danger.
Carlos is the type of illegal Mexican immigrant republicans like to pretend doesn’t exist. Instead, republicans choose to see Mexican immigrants as job stealers and law breakers at best, or more likely as MS-13 gang members and, as Donald Trump famously described illegal immigrants from Mexico, “people that have lots of problems…They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crimes. They’re rapists.” Because of this perceived lawlessness and threat from every illegal immigrant, it’s easy for republicans to feel that illegal immigrants deserve the harshest of punishments with no sympathy or mercy. It’s what allows them to excuse or approve of the young children of illegal immigrants being separated from their parents, put in cages, sometimes abused, and given no way to be reunited with their families. A Better Life humanizes an illegal immigrant, puts you in his shoes, and makes you realize that you, like Carlos, would go to any lengths to ensure safety and a better life for your children. Republicans can’t allow that kind of thinking.
For democrats, Carlos’ plight is one they can understand and empathize with. While democrats are generally not supporters of illegal immigration or open borders (as republicans commonly mischaracterize them), they recognize that people willing to risk their lives (and sometimes their children’s) to illegally enter the US and spend their lives living in perpetual legal risk are often doing so because they want to improve their families’ lives or are fleeing something far worse, not because they are hunting for victims or have ambitions to become career criminals in America. They are people who deserve our sympathy, not fear and hatred. Because of this, democrats support keeping the families of illegal immigrants together, legislation like DACA that provides protection for people who were brought to the US illegally when they were children, and providing a reasonable path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented people living and working in the US and contributing to our economy.
Read my complete review of A Better Life here.
‘Brooklyn’: Republicans’ Perfect Immigrant
Brooklyn was a critical hit (97% on Rotten Tomatoes) when it was released in 2015, and it went on to be nominated for three Oscars (Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay). The film follows Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), a teenager during the 1950s who, despite her intelligence, has few prospects in her small Irish town. So her older sister (Fiona Glascott) pays her passage to New York and connects Eilis with a priest (Jim Broadbent) who arranges her visa, a place to live in a Brooklyn boarding house, and a job at a swanky department store. While initially beset with homesickness and loneliness, Eilis eventually acclimatizes to life on the East Coast, attending night school and winning the affections of a very sweet Italian plumber (Emory Cohen). But before Eilis can put down roots, circumstances bring her back to Ireland, where family obligations, the familiarity of home, and the advances of yet another extremely sweet suitor (Domhnall Gleeson) has Eilis wondering where she really belongs.
While Brooklyn is a well-made, enjoyable film, what most struck me about it is how little it has to do with what we might identify as the immigrant experience. Aside from some seasickness during her oceanliner cruise to New York, Eilis has no difficulty getting to or entering the US, encounters no discrimination, no language or cultural barriers, and has lodging and a job waiting for her upon arrival. Her biggest problem is loneliness and homesickness, but that starts to go away as she makes friends, busies herself with night school, and begins spending more time with her adoring boyfriend. And when Eilis returns to Ireland, it basically ends up being a lateral move as she quickly secures another good job as well as another adoring boyfriend with good prospects. In fact, her life back in Ireland is so agreeable that Eilis debates whether it’s worth returning to the US at all.
Despite being from Ireland, the fact that Eilis is westernized, Christian, English-speaking, educated, and white (not to mention attractive) allows her to integrate easily into American culture. In that way, what Eilis experiences in Brooklyn seems to be almost exactly what a young American girl would experience if she moved from a small town to a big city several states away. This is what makes Eilis the perfect (and I’d say only) type of immigrant republicans would want to become American citizens — ones who are practically Americans upon arrival and are racially, culturally, and religiously indistinguishable from themselves — and whose story might be similar to that of their parents or grandparents. This is why Trump has said that he would approve of more immigrants coming from countries like Norway, not “shithole” countries like Haiti and Nigeria, whose citizens have brown skin and, as Trump allegedly said (and the White House declined to deny), “all have AIDS” and would never “go back to their huts”.
Democrats are not against people from Ireland, or really from anywhere, coming to the US and becoming citizens, since democrats believe that all types of diversity contribute to making a better country, in keeping with America’s roots as a country of immigrants. But people like Eilis — whose life in Ireland is nice enough that she considers not returning to the US — should not be the only kind of immigrants to be given the opportunity to become US citizens. If anything, immigrants whose need for safe haven is greatest — like those from countries ravaged by war, poverty, and religious/ethnic persecution — should be given priority, not people from countries like Norway, which in 2017 was declared the happiest country on earth (North America ranked 14th).
Read my complete review of Brooklyn here.
