PicoBlog

This film is germane to the current Chicago scene and to people who have come, and are coming, from Mexico.  Migrants often face very difficult challenges getting to Chicago—and those migrants have to decide for themselves whether those challenges are worth the effort.   

“7 soles” is the story of typical events experienced by any number of Mexicans (and other persons) who pay a “coyote” to take them over the border and through the desert to reach the United States.  What happens in this film is the very common abuse, rape, shooting, and abandonment of persons as they make that very dangerous trek across the sand to reach their “future” as various people have promised them (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1175633/).

Everything that happens in the film is typical.  All of these things have been corroborated by many persons I know personally and professionally.  There are many other such accounts—and films—of the dangerous crossing. 

While not every single crossing of the dessert includes all of these events, many such journeys in fact do.

Why do people take such terrible risks?  Why do they not stay in their own countries?  Why do they think there are so many great jobs here just waiting for them?  Why do they think it is worth it to break the law?

These kinds of questions arise very often when uninformed people hear about the topic of crossing the desert.  People who do not know very much about the history of Mexico—or Arizona or New Mexico or Texas—often make harsh judgments. 

My dissertation, completed and accepted for my Ph.D. in 2010, involved interviewing Mexican-American college students studying English as a second language in Illinois community colleges.  My questions for them revolved around differences and similarities they encountered in studying English in Mexico versus Illinois.  

Because a lot of information about the desert crossings arose during the interviews, I learned a great deal about the reality facing these students, citizens of Illinois, and professors of English—namely that about a half of the students I interviewed were in the Chicagoland area learning English, and doing so without documents to be in the U.S.

From their stories, and those echoing the dangers having been encountered by many other persons who had crossed the desert to get to Chicago, I learned a lot about the determination of the migrants (they all came here to work and to succeed) that I had certainly not planned to ask about.  Students volunteered all of the information about being here without documents—I asked no questions about that topic at all.

“7 soles” revolves around the story of a Mexican man in Chicago who has been living here for some time and who has managed to save up enough money to hire a coyote to bring over his wife, and his young son and daughter, finally, to be with him.  Though the woman’s parents do not wish her to take the dangerous trip with the children, they let them go to “the north.”  It is hard on them to see her go… and they express how very much they will miss their daughter and their grandchildren.

The ending of the movie is mostly terrible and unhappy.  There are some small joys… but obviously most will ask if the cost has been worth it.

Understanding why the migrants have left a damaged and difficult economy with no jobs and no future is a hard step for some people to take.  The migrants—from most anywhere—endure a great deal to be able to take part in what they insist is “their destiny.”  This notion is expressed in the theme of the movie “7 soles.”

If you have not thought much about these topics, viewing this film will change your life.

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In the meantime in Chicago, there is the topic of the migrants from Venezuela, Colombia, and Haiti… with the numbers being very high indeed—considering the shock here being the migrants arrived “almost at once” as one community advocate has stated.  Starting that one day in August, bus after bus roared into town… with migrants not really knowing where they were… speaking almost no English whatsoever… and not knowing which way to turn to get help.

The migrants have been called upon by Chicago leaders to develop resiliency and self-sufficiency, overnight.  The stress is on these new Chicagoans to find work, find help, and find jobs.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas has gone as far as to say that these “new” migrants must be pretty resilient—after all, they made it through six countries on their way here.

The number of movies and books about this “new” round of migrants will be great, indeed, and the journeys themselves will not be happy ones.  Perhaps there will be more happy endings than sad endings.

Time will tell.

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