Re: Film explores a day in the life of California without Hispanics

[Guest guest]

Everyone,

I thought I would pass this onto you all

By LAURA WIDES LOS ANGELES - California is home to 12 million Hispanics,

about one-third of

the state's population. What if they all disappeared? In Arau's

new comedy " A Day Without a Mexican, " the answer is chaos.

Cafes lose waiters, vegetables rot in the fields, schools are left

without teachers and elected officials, including the lieutenant

governor, vanish.

" The idea of the film was to make the invisible visible, " said Arau, a

native of Mexico and the son of actor-director Alfonso Arau. " It's like a

car. If you take away a tire, you will notice. " The movie, which debuts

Friday in Southern California, is scheduled to be

released nationwide over the summer. It's being distributed by

Spanish-language media conglomerate Televisa.

Filmed in a documentary style for nearly $2 million, it pokes fun at

almost everyone in its effort to highlight the roles of Hispanics in

U.S. society.

" So many films about immigration are very serious or tragic, " said Arau,

the film's director and co-writer. " But humor is the best way to talk about

serious themes because people relax and are more open. " Arau's wife,

Yareli Arizmendi, who appeared in his father's film " Like Water

for Chocolate, " stars as TV reporter Lila , California's last

Hispanic, whose search for the missing becomes the latest in reality TV.

As she searches, low-riders bounce driverless along the street and the

Los Angeles Dodgers must cancel games because they don't have enough

players -

while the National Basketball Association remains unaffected. UFO

fanatics insist the Mexican sombrero is a replica of the spaceship that

whisked the

missing back to their planet. The film has particular meaning in the

nation's most-populous state. California has no majority ethnic

population, with whites making up about 45 percent of the population and

Hispanics 34 percent. According to 2000 Census figures, Hispanics

represent nearly a quarter of

the state's kindergarten teachers, 20 percent of the state's police

officers and 88 percent of its agricultural workers.

Yet the economic and social contributions from Hispanics are often

ignored, Arau said. He said that's especially true for immigrant

laborers, whose

cheap labor provides inexpensive goods and services. Arau and Arizmendi,

who co-wrote the script, came up with the idea in 1994,

when former Gov. Pete was running for re-election on a platform

that included a referendum barring illegal immigrants from receiving

many social

services. Proposition 187 was approved but was challenged in court and

never took effect. Last month, a similar anti-immigrant initiative

failed even to qualify for

the November ballot. And although Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger helped

repeal a law that would have given driver's licenses to illegal

immigrants, he said

he would approve a similar law if it provides for more security checks.

Still, illegal immigration remains a flashpoint. U.S. Rep. Dan

Rohrabacher recently proposed a bill requiring doctors to report

patients' immigration status to federal authorities; and President Bush

has angered many members of Congress, including several in his own

party, over his proposal for a guest-worker program that would allow

many who illegally have entered the country to receive temporary work

visas but

limit the number who could apply for permanent residency. The film's own

advertisements have caused a stir, too. Billboards based on

the title were pulled down after passers-by, unaware of the film's

subject, complained that they were offensive. Arizmendi said many of the

sentiments about Mexican immigrants that fueled support for Proposition

187 remain. " Prop. 187 may no longer exist, but there's still these

feelings of

immigrants using and abusing services they don't deserve, " she said.

Immigration issues are more complex than a film such as " A Day Without a

Mexican " can explore, said Louis DeSipio, an associate professor of

political science and Latino studies at the University of California,

Irvine. For example, California attracts a disproportionate share of

immigrants but doesn't receive enough federal money to offset associated

costs for

education, health care, law enforcement and other services. The film's

greatest fault may be in attempting to tackle too many issues in

one story, but Arau and Arizmendi said their goal is very simple.

" People ask us, `What do you want people to do when they walk out of the

theater? " ' Arizmendi said. " All we want is that people go to dinner ...

and just keep your eyes open. See the complexity of the different people

who are

out there. "

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. .)

Josh Shepherd

Resource Center Manager

National Center for Farmworker Health

(512) 312-5463