Until now I have basically arranged almost everything necessary to start editing. (Well, except the editing script…) This entails 45 hours of miniDV with a Sony DSR-PDX10, which has a nice video quality when in good light (but definitely too grainy when it comes to low levels of light). I bought this used camera in NY (B&H rocks!) with the professional advice of my friend and colleague Jon Wetterau, who was the perfect cameraguy. Mainly for budget reasons, we relied completely on the integrated XLR shotgun mic of the PDX10 for sound. Not terrible and very, very available.
The shooting was divided into two main parts: Mexico and the U.S. I first went to a small, thousand people indigenous community deep inside the Oaxacan mountains (la Sierra) called Magdalena. We stayed there for three weeks in a small room in the back of the parish, really functioning as mosquito food. The most difficult part of this stage of the documentary was building trust with the people we wanted to interview. People in rural, indigenous Mexico are sometimes distrustful. Decades (some say centuries) of manipulation by outsiders has encroached these societies into very tight-knit, distrustful-of-outsiders groups. The first week on my own was basically spent getting to know people’s lives without doing any real shooting other than crappy pans with my $30 tripod for b-roll. Jon arrived a week later than me. Lot’s of talking, lot’s of hand-shaking, lot’s of beer drinking and lot’s of (literally) in-the-field work, were the main tactics to build trust.
Perhaps I should also mention honesty. People were absolutely mind-blown when this white guy who says is a Mexican and a gringo show up with a fancy camera in the fields asking to work with them for a while –for free! We were often asked what people would get in return for appearing in the documentary. Will we get paid? Will you bring in budget to repair that road over there? Will you tell us how a seven year old American girl that lives in Magdalena can renew her passport? (Forget it. It’s insane.) Would you help us cross the border? Do you know anyone in the U.S. that could give us a job? People sometimes do value the truth. No money, no budget, no fame or fortune, no jobs in el Norte. Only a couple of guys looking for people who would be willing to tell their story in front of a recording camera— we replied.
Trying to get into people’s lives to film and interview them about their illegal relatives in the United States required us to show people that the project could be useful for them. The only way to do this is to be completely open about the nature of the problem and the real scope of the project. It also helps to be genuinely interested. This slow-approach strategy finally worked. Three weeks after we arrived, Jon and I had so many interviews scheduled that we had to politely decline new proposals. In a pueblo that is one of the hundreds of sources for illegals, where the main goal in life is to migrate to el Norte, where illegal migrants are actually only a brother, a mother or a friend (not an alien), stories of migration popped out like mushrooms in June.
The second part of the shooting was made in a small American town called Austin, MN. This town is home of Hormel Foods, creator of Spam –that delicious little can of meat that was instrumental in the Ally’s victory in World War II– (yes, yes, there is a Spam museum in Austin). People from Magdalena migrate essentially to Austin. There is a big network of people that reduces the costs of illegal migration with remittances, zero-interest loans and logistical aid.
Our entry to Austin was much smoother than to Magdalena, because we had already a strong relationship with various families. The reason Jon and I ended up in MN is one of those rare instances in which good luck and hard work happen. I asked the priest in Magdalena to let people know, during that Sunday’s mass, that I was there and the goal of the project. It turns out that an American woman was also present. Cristina is an evangelical pastor that has been going back and forth between Austin and Magdalena for the last 10 years, becoming a fundamental source of help (both spiritual and vehicular) for the migrant community in Austin.
I told her that I was a UCSD grad student, and the nature of the project. She proposed that Jon and I go to Austin. So, we basically got involved in Magdalena with around 6 or seven families in 3 weeks, interviewing fairly deeply, and we asked their permission to track down their relatives in Austin. All of them agreed. One family gave me a picture of the men in the family, among whom there was El Borrego, the eldest son. He is 23 years old and migrated to MN 5 years ago. His parents haven´t seen him again since. His younger brother doesn´t know him. Another lady gave me a bag full of candy for her twin grand-daughters, whom she has never seen but in pictures because her son Raúl migrated 8 years ago to Austin. Her eldest son has been in Hawaii for 11 years. Families are breaking apart not because of the natural drift of circumstances, but because of failed policy.
With a family picture and a bag of candy, a couple of names and guaranteed free lodging with Cristina, Jon and I left Magdalena and headed for Austin following a story. Austin-Magdalena. Into the Bowels of Luxury.
Labels: Day 1
1 Comments:
Great project, Alex! The close link between the tiny village in Oaxaca and the Spam factory in Austin, MN is almost surreal. From an academic perspective, think "social network analysis..."
Best,
Lawrence
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