The Ideology of Which Way Home

  There is one segment of the documentary, Which Way Home, that visualizes the ideologies of young immigrant children risking everything in order to make it to America with the dream of being able to provide for their families back home. From 4:04-5:40, the film takes a focus on the statistics of the migrating children and moves with the group of young boys who we follow for majority of the film.

  Here we are introduced to Kevin, who is fourteen years old and mentions how his mother was too poor to afford to support her children, so he dreams of making it to America and providing for her. This received consciousness of many of the children on the same tragic journey is that they must break from the reality of being a child and forcibly adapt into the world of becoming an adult. The uncertainty of their journey can be reflected in the waiting game the boys play on the train tracks as they await a train that will be heading on a track that could potentially lead them to the United States. Before the scene ends, Kevin is scene speaking to his mother on the phone and informing her of where he is located. The vulnerability suggests the youth that all of the children possess.

 Speaking to the ideology of illegal immigration of children from poverished South American countries, the socialization of the young boys in these families leaving home and fighting against the odds of surviving the dangerous travels, has become the main source of reasoning and justification as to why these young men and women are subjected to lending to the notion of creating an ideology. It becomes an issue when it is recognized as a socially constructed problem where at a certain age these children feel it is necessary to take the responsibility of providing for their families by migrating to America. Children ranging from the ages of 10-15, pack up and leave home, sometimes never addressing their departure to their family. For example, when Kevin contacts his mother on the phone at the end of the scene I chose, she has an element of surprise in voice when he mentions his location. There are other children on the journey who never told their parents and just left. The scary realization that most of these children are detained, kidnapped by smugglers, or unfortunate enough to die, emphasizes how unsettling of an ideology Which Way Home depicts.

  The concept of ideologies as a “this is what we do and how we do it” mentality, parallels with the mentalities of the migrants featured in all three movies we viewed so far. Whether they are escaping crime, running from fear, searching for hope, or planning on creating a better life for their family and themselves in another country, each face of the travelling characters from Eddie to Willy to Kevin to Sayra and Sally, become representative of an increasingly heartbreaking ideology forming all over the world where the children of the future have to grow up a little earlier than expected.

Sin Nombre

    Reviewing the film Sin Nombre for this course, I started to see the film in a different light than I had previously. There was an element to each character that I had not recognized before and their significance to the film grew, whether they were present for a short duration or not. For instance, the scene that I chose to focus on this week occurs towards the middle of the film when Lil Mago kills Martha Marlen after she rejects his sexual advances.
    In this scene, the complexity of El Casper's character is visibly displayed through his emotional breakdown when Lil Mago informs him that the devil took Martha Marlen. In an effort to remain loyal to both the Mara Salvaturcha gang he is a member of and to his deceased girlfriend, El Casper begins to show a tether of emotions that parallels the tether between youth and adulthood. Throughout the entire film El Casper is put into positions and scenarios that require him to engage in things that strip away his ability to live as a teenager. Murder, theft, and a life of crime place adult responsibilities onto El Casper, or Willy as he identifies with outside of his gang. Yet, when he discovers that Marth Marlen has been murdered, he retreats to responding with emotions that remove him from this falsified adult persona he lives.
    Although this scene is reflective of the character dynamics between Lil Mago, Martha Marlen, and El Casper, it's key in understanding the other characters of the film and the various elements each possess. For example, Smiley mirrors the struggle between child and adult that El Casper goes through, by dealing with initiation into the gang and taking on the responsibilities of murder. In Smiley's character structure, the introduction of his younger, playground friends emphasizes just how young he really is.
    Age typically directs the behaviors and mentalities of individuals as the development of cognition and identity pair with the various stages of maturation. However, Sin Nombre proves that the varying degrees of growing up are conflicted with the tragic reality of a membership in a violent gang such as the Mara Salvaturcha. Instead of playing with his friends on the jungle gym, Smiley is showing off a gun he intends to kill El Casper with. Rather than enjoy the time spent with his girlfriend and express the proper mourning of her death, Willy, is forced to live within the dark identity he embodies when he is El Casper. The internal tether each character harbors creates an on-screen demonstration of the destructive elements that arise when they are fighting with who they are and who they are expected to be.
   I think that Sin Nombre explores the tensions discussed in my blog in an excellent way, yet I wish there would have been more opportunities for each character to spend time with the other self away from the crime or hardships that life presents to each individual character. From El Casper to Lil Mago, Smiley to Sayra, El Sol to Marth Marlen, created for Sin Nombre deal with a tether, whether it is with youth, relationships, poverty, traveling, escaping death, sexuality, or being a part of something at the expense of themselves.