Monday, May 15, 2017
135 - . . . And the Pursuit of Happiness, 1986, United States. Dir. Louis Malle.
Vasily Bolos. Romania.
A man walks around Texas. 3,200 miles.
For the Sesquicentennial. The 150-years anniversary of Texas.
For the love and respect for this country.
Vasily Bolos escaped from Romania a few years ago.
He walked over mountains. He swimmed the Danube. He found his way to America.
The land of opportunity.
"We come with a lot of dreams and we work hard to achieve it."
Louis Malle. Paris, France.
Louis Malle now takes a look at immigrants.
"My name is Louis Malle. I didn't walk like Vasily Bolos, but for three months I rambled around this country, filming some of the millions who have come to America recently to fulfill their dreams or for other treasons."
Cambodian refugees.
January 1968, Kennedy Airport.
Survivors of some of the worst genocide this planet has known since World War 2.
These are among the happy few admitted to the U.S.
They come from camps in Thailand where thousands of their compatriots are waiting for a future.
Customs. The customs official checks them through. He is friendly.
D8-41. They're coming from Rome.
All right. They're all set. Thank you.
He lets them through.
Admen Malaq. A freedom fighter from the mountains of Kurdistan.
Now a taxi driver in Dallas. Last month he became his own boss. He and a group of drivers from Africa and the Middle East got together to form the Liberty Taxi Company.
Gideon Odjari. Ghana, West Africa.
The president of Liberty Cab. He has a degree from the University of Michigan.
Everybody owns one share. Each driver gets one vote. They are entitled to a share of the profits. They have 135 drivers. Their goal is to get to 400.
Boris Leskin. One of the best-known stage actors in the Soviet Union.
In Russia he was rich and famous. He owned his own apartment. He drove a big car. He spoke no English at all.
Why did he come to America?
"Now is beginning of my second life."
He speaks to his students: "Projection through your body."
He wanted to teach Americans "the real Stanislavski" [the father of modern acting].
He says in the United States Stanislavski's method is not taught clearly. They only teach part of it. He wants to teach it properly.
He wants to be in the movies.
"There are not too many jobs in Hollywood for a 60-year old Russian genius with an accent."
Yet Louis Malle himself says he understands Boris Leskin's desire.
"I know exactly what Boris is talking about. There is something irresistible about coming to America and starting all over again."
Public School 89. Queens, New York.
Children of 17 nationalities taught American history by a woman born in the Philippines.
A woman on the street corner selling you the opportunity to take your picture with a cardboard cutout of Sylvester Stallone.
Where do you come from?
What's the difference?
I'm here now.
God bless America.
Sohpia Eduarte. Cuba.
In 1980 she was one of the Mariel boat people. She got a high school equivalency. She went to Dade County Community College. She took a two-year program to become a computer analyst.
She married another Cuban immigrant. They live in Little Havana in Miami.
She brought her dog.
"He speaks English! He loves America. He loves the food. He is a refugee. But when his mother becomes a U.S. citizen, he will become a U.S. citizen."
"It was my dream to come to the United States. The life in Cuba was so poor. People had no ambitions. In America you can have what you want."
Do you ever miss Cuba?
"Never. Never. And I think I will never be back."
Minh Engleson. Vietnam.
Police officer for the Westminster Police Department in Santa Ana, California.
Almost 100,000 Vietnamese have resettled in Orange County, and most of them do well.
They shop at their own supermarkets. The produce is fresher and cheaper.
During The Yellow Peril, there were riots in Los Angeles in 1871 and 19 Chinese were lynched. The Oriental Exclusion Act shut off Asian immigration for decades.
But that is over.
Newcomer High School. San Francisco.
Children from 34 different countries, speaking 22 different languages and dialects study here.
They are very motivated. They understand that they have to work hard and study hard.
45,000 Chinese came to the U.S. last year.
They are learning math and English at the same time.
Jun-Yun Kim. Korea.
He has been in America four years. He spoke no English when he came. He goes to school for seven or eight hours a day. He does homework for four hours. Then he helps his parents at the grocery store.
He wants to go into medicine. His grades are good enough that he has his choice of Ivy League schools. He is interested in Columbia or Princeton.
Nick Ha. Vietnam.
He escaped on a boat. He wants to go to Stanford or Cal Tech.
Last year he won a national art competition. His painting is hanging in the U.S. Capitol.
He wants to be an aerospace engineer.
B.J. Singh Bindra. India.
He is younger. In elementary school. He has won a limerick contest. He wants to be a scientist.
Franklin Chang-Diaz. Costa Rica. Roots in China.
His paternal grandfather was an immigrant from China to Costa Rica.
He is the first NASA astronaut not born in the United States.
When he was a child he created a makeshift training simulator in his backyard consisting of cardboard boxes and chairs.
He came to the United States at age 17 and through hard work and scholarships he graduated from M.I.T. and received his PhD.
Louis Malle shows footage of him in space.
He trains daily for future missions.
Dr. Nguyen Duc Diem. Saigon.
He now lives and practices in Bridgeport, Nebraska. He came on a program for Vietnamese physicians. He chose Nebraska to give back.
Pete Lapsoris. Greece.
Pete is one of Dr. Diem's patients in Bridgeport. They joke. They play cards. They eat together.
Pete is 93 years old. He came through Ellis Island. New York. It was the only way to get in.
He came in 1907 at the age of 14. He worked for a dollar a day.
Dr. Diem is married to Janet from Illinois.
She is a nurse. They delivered all the babies together. Now they are having their own. They have two children and are expecting their third.
Two of Dr. Diem's brothers are in the United States and a third is in Malaysia, working on coming over.
Allen Parkway Village. Downtown Houston.
A Federal development going back to the 1930s. Originally for blacks, now half of its residents are Indo-Chinese.
Lenwood Johnson. Head of the Residents Council.
The Asians get away with things that the blacks are not able to get away with.
They dry their fish in the sun.
If we say something, they are offended. If they say something, we are not allowed to be offended.
Mr. Johnson believes that the city moved them in in order to do away with the place and replace it with luxury apartments. He says the Vietnamese do not know their rights or the laws, so they can come by and tell them to leave in two hours, and they do.
Now 30% of the units are unoccupied.
The Jedats. Egypt.
Men pray in Arabic while kneeling.
The daughter says she does not want to go back to Egypt. "It stinks!"
The Arabs are becoming doctors, scientists, teachers, and engineers.
But they are conscious of their image.
Mr. Jedat says people think of them as having been born in a tent and riding camels. He is frustrated that people see terrorism around the world and think all Arabs are terrorists. He and his wife want to have nothing to do with that.
"We try to blend in, as I'm sure most immigrants have done over the years."
Itzhiam Hassan. Arab.
He prays at a mosque in Richardson, Texas.
He complains about the social problems in America.
Amina Ismael. Pakistan.
She was a schoolteacher in Pakistan. Now she is a beautician in America.
Louis Malle does not know the word beautician. She explains that it means hairstyling.
She works with Elizabeth Arden.
Louis Malle imagines that for women "the freedom of choices must be thrilling."
Derek Walcott. St. Lucia. West Indies.
A poet and playwright.
Immigrants are constantly becoming American.
He says the downside is making every taste the same.
Meserite Gazan. Ethiopia.
He started washing dishes in a New York restaurant.
Then he worked for Yellow Cab.
Then he worked in finance.
Then he trained at a technical school.
Texas Instruments recruited him there.
Now he works for Texas Instruments in the missile program for the Defense Department.
He says, "Hard struggle will be rewarded."
Sonja Gazan. Jamaica.
Meserite Gazan's wife. He is from Ethiopia. She is from Jamaica.
They mix foods.
Ali Moutimizgan.
He owns a restaurant.
He says when he came to America he decided to forget the past. He decide that he would stay here and therefore would do things the way people do them here. He would not bring things here but leave them at home.
Jorge Alvarado.
Born Catholic. Now Evangelical.
Pastors the Ministerio de Varones Spanish church in the Houston suburbs.
They worship.
He preaches the Gospel.
He prays for his people.
"O, Heavenly Father. We need your power."
Kim Patamaruang. Laos.
Her family escaped Laos in 1975 when she was 7. Now she is 18. She teaches Laotian dance. She eats pizza and hamburgers. She says traditional Laotian dishes are "smelly."
Richard Patamaruang. Laos.
Kim's father.
He was a Brigadier General in the Laotian army.
When he came to America he did not know what to do. Since he knew guns, he began working at a gun factory.
He has a son and two grandchildren in Connecticut.
The grandchildren speak English.
Nila Patel. India.
Now in San Jose, California.
He and his family own two motels, a couple houses, and condominiums.
The Sands Motel. Opened July 4, 1974.
The Park View Motel.
He and his wife worked 16 hours a day.
He is organizing his own bank. The state has recently given him a charter.
His son plans to go to Stanford.
They are raising their children to keep their traditional language and customs.
He believes he has the best of both worlds.
Roger Conner works for FAIR--the Federation for Immigration Reform.
He says that not all immigrants realized their dreams in the founding of this country. About one-third went back to their homes.
Illegal Immigrants.
Louis Malle spends time at the Mexican border.
Illegal immigrants are taking construction jobs. Legal immigrants complain to him about it.
"The farmer knows if he can get an undocumented immigrant working for him, he can cheat him out of his money."
He shows Mexico as being in an economic crisis, so Mexicans try to get to America to get jobs to send money back to their people.
A man in Jalisco makes 900 pesos a day. Around $2.00. To provide for his wife and seven children.
The border is made of rugged canyons and is difficult to control.
Border Patrol Agent.
They patrol using helicopters, three-wheelers, and infrared telescopes.
He says that it is impossible to prosecute everyone, so they offer them a hearing or voluntary return. Most choose voluntary return.
Ten years ago 10 pesos = $1.00.
Today 700 pesos = $1.00.
[The numbers are provided by Louis Malle.]
Francisco Flores. Mexico.
He crosses the border illegally.
Sometimes he pays people to carry others across. Sometimes he asks them to do it without paying them.
He speaks to--
Hal Isel. Border Patrol Officer.
Francisco and Hal talk like members of rival sports teams.
So you tried to cross the border?
And I promise I will try it again.
We always treat you like a human being, right?
How long until you come back?
Maybe half an hour.
Vaya con Dios.
Francisco is bussed back to the border two miles away.
He crosses again that night.
Hal Isel says, "The only way to stop the invasion is through meaningful immigration reform."
It is a myth that we cannot make it without them, just as we once said we could not make it without child labor in the fields.
Louis Malle shows more people on more sides of the debate, and whether he intends to or not, he makes the conservative case.
He shows that allowing people to cross illegally only hurts them. Roger Conner calls it the importing of a subclass to do the dirty work. To get away with creating slave-like conditions. He states that the children of illegal immigrants have a 40-60% school dropout rate and make up the majority of the gangs of Los Angeles.
And that the very people who came over illegally to work below minimum wage end up unemployed here.
General Somoza. Nicaragua.
The General Somoza of Nicaragua. The former dictator. The head of the country.
The Somozas ruled Nicaragua for 40 years. They were thrown out by the Sandinistas. Yet they do not support the Contras.
They live in Miami.
They have a great house. Their dining room seats 24 people.
General Somoza watches Mexican soap operas and tends to his garden.
His extended family lives with him.
The children treat him with formality. He is General Somoza.
The grandchildren treat him casually. He is their grandpa. At first this was a shock to him. It seemed disrespectful.
One of the nephews says, "To me this is more a natural life than what we had before. I am able to take my life in whichever direction I want.
Now I am free.
I'm really happy."
Diane Jones. Trenton, New Jersey.
Assimilation in reverse.
Diane is a black American. She is the lead singer of a musical group of Russian Jews.
She sings in Russian at The Odessa.
The Odessa.
Brighton Beach. Brooklyn.
The Russian Jews.
A man--
I love music.
I love jazz.
I love freedom.
A woman--
I love the United States.
I love the America.
It is my country.
No comments:
Post a Comment