Movie Review: Latino Americans - Foreigners in Their Own Land

The movie series Latino Americans, gives an exploration of the years between 1565-1880, as the first Spanish immigrants settle in Northern America. The film also shows how the United States grows into territories in the Southwest that were home to Spanish, English, and Native Americans colonies, and how the Mexican American War, conquers half of Mexico's regions by 1848. The first episode "foreigners in their land," explains how most Latinos feel in today's society, classified as indifferent from the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant community and hence face discriminations. The movie widens our insight on the Spanish as the first nation to colonize the US: thus, the Spanish speakers have the longest history in America, and regardless of this, they continue to endure issues of immigration and racial discrimination in the hands of the White Americans.

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Most significantly, the film gives a clear understanding of the Latino American's identity by looking at how this community is often perceived as "foreign" Americans. This movie represents the notion of foreigners in their land. Though the Mexicans were legal citizens in their nation, based on their ethnicity, they were automatically perceived to be foreigners. Anti-Latino ideas grew along with immigration. Americans barred Latinos from entering into Anglo settlements and isolated into urban barrios in deprived regions. Even though Latinos were essential to the American economy and were US citizens, everything from their origins, skin colour, and language, was used as excuses for discrimination. Americans treated them as underclass immigrants and disseminated stereotypes that the Spanish speakers were unworthy and lazy.

The film tracks this discrimination to the first Latin American imperialism, and particularly the Bracero program. This project attracted labourers from Puerto Rico and Mexico to work and go back to their countries of origin temporarily. They lost their lands to cattle ranchers and had no job security as they engaged in hard labour with little wage on their original grounds. From this onset, the Americans viewed these Latino individuals as minority groups. They were poor, faced exploitations, and worked to the bone. The Latino's started running away from their contract jobs facing exploitation in their lands began settling in urban areas. Most of them stayed for more periods than they were required and began to smuggle their families over. These working-class Latinos eventually started to migrate to America permanently. Following this rise in immigration, more white Americans continued to see the immigrants as a racial "other," one who is not capable of fitting in their definition of American. This racism is still visible in contemporary society as Latinos get denied free entry into the American borders and those who manage to settle in the state face discrimination based on their race and language.

Conclusion

The Latino Americans movie is one compelling documentary which narrates the different experiences, history, and riches of Latinos, who contributed to America's growth over the past centuries, and with a population of approximately fifty-million people, they have become the biggest minority group in America. In California for instance, Mexicans evolved from being powerful land-owners and affluent, to a second-class citizen, facing racial violence and discriminations following the Anglo-settlers forceful eviction from their Mexican lands. Through history, Latinos are interchangeably welcome and banned in America on condition of the requirement for cheap labour. Thus, the crucial issue of racial discrimination and immigration in the twenty-first-century date back to historical events.

Reference

Episode 1: Foreigners in Their OwnLand | Latino Americans. (2013). PBS.org. Retrieved 22 October 2018, from https://www.pbs.org/video/latino-americans-episode-1-foreigners-their-own-land/