Shown here, is art on the wall of a home occupied by migrant
workers as seen in the documentary "Rancho California (por favor),"
a film directed by UCLA film Professor John Caldwell. The 2002
Sundance Film Festival selectee looks at the racial politics
surrounding Southern California’s "dirty little secret" of migrant
worker camps among gated designer-home communities in suburban
Orange and San Diego counties. The film screens at UCLA April 8,
2002 at 7:30 p.m. in the James Bridges Theater.
By Mayra Marquez
Daily Bruin Contributor
Poverty, injustice, internment and overcoming near to impossible
odds all characterize the lives that are highlighted in John
Caldwell’s documentary “Rancho California (por
favor)” and Robert Nakamura’s “Toyo Miyatake:
Infinite Shades of Gray.”
The films of Caldwell and Nakamura, both of whom are professors
of Film, Television and Digital Media at the UCLA School of
Theater, Film and Television, will be featured by the UCLA
Documentary Salon on Monday, April 8, at 7:30 p.m. in the James
Bridges Theater on campus. Both films were also shown this year at
the Sundance Film Festival.
In “Rancho California” Caldwell depicts the
conditions of migrant workers living in shacks assembled from
discarded pieces of tarp, plywood, cardboard and plastics,
overlooking posh exclusive neighborhoods in Orange and San Diego
counties. Many of these workers find jobs in domestics or gardening
within these neighborhoods.
The film succeeds in disturbing the viewer with striking images
of these indigenous Mixteco (Indians of Mexico) workers, who many
times are taken advantage of by labor contractors, shown in
settings similar to the confinement of livestock.
“I had done a documentary in the 1980s in Central America,
and I was finding that living conditions in North San Diego County
were as bad as anything I’d seen in Nicaraguan refugee camps
in Central America in 1983. These conditions existed and everyone
knew it,” said Caldwell.
Shelter of immigrant work camp residents featured in the
documentary film "Rancho California (por favor)" directed by John
Caldwell, professor of Film, Television and Digital Media at the
UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
The fact that these communities are aware of the Mixteco’s
existence but choose to turn their other cheek explains how several
workers could be taken from their camps, beaten, shot and
pitchforked by neighborhood teenagers, only to leave other workers
in the camps in fear for their lives as shown in the film.
“It’s difficult to find who the bad guys are when
everyone in California is touched by it through the economy.
It’s never anybody’s problem and that’s the
problem. Everyone washes their hands of it,” said
Caldwell.
Filming for this feature began when tensions were high near the
time of Proposition 187 in 1994, which denied illegal immigrants
access to health and social services. The events of Sept. 11 have
once again heightened racial tensions, making this film timely.
Caldwell, however, sees hope in taking small steps.
“My expectation of success changed. The issue of
immigration is big and is difficult to tackle. The real revolution
is much more provisional. The real change occurred when in the
camps, residents took it upon themselves to demand to be treated
under American labor standards. I went back last week and they had
installed portable toilets and that in itself is a major
victory,” he said.
Aside from the injustices suffered by the Mixteco people,
“Rancho California” also shows how the human spirit can
rise above these conditions and find joy in simple pleasures such
as watching “telenovelas” on a scratchy,
battery-operated TV set, playing a tune on an abandoned electric
keyboard, or drawing narratives of life with crayons.
“These Mixtecos do make art, and do make music, but if we
fail to talk about how contractors abuse them, we’re being
stupid and mean-spirited about it,” Caldwell reaffirms.
The creation of art amongst dreadful conditions can also be seen
in Nakamura’s glimpse into the inspiring story of Toyo
Miyatake, a Japanese-American photographer more concerned with art
than profit and who took his art into the internment camp in Owens
Valley, Calif. where he and many other Japanese Americans were held
during World War II.
“He is one of the few role models I had in the form of art
and photography. He smuggled a lens into Manzanar, where I was put
into also, and he built his own camera,” said Nakamura.
Miyatake used his makeshift camera to document the lives of
Japanese Americans discriminated against simply because of their
appearance. Prior to the war, Japanese Americans had enjoyed much
success socially and economically all along the West Coast. The
attack on Pearl Harbor changed all of this.
“A lot of my other films have this camp theme so
it’s an ongoing exploration. This is one other piece of the
puzzle,” said Nakamura. “The experience of Arab
Americans is not too different from Japanese Americans after Pearl
Harbor in terms of hate crimes and being profiled racially. Because
you have the face of the enemy, you were suspect. After Sept. 11,
it’s the same,” he adds.
Despite the negativity surrounding this dark period in history,
this film celebrates the life of such an accomplished artist.
Photography was so much a part of Miyatake’s life that on
family outings many times he would disappear for hours and return
after having spent his time taking scenery shots, some of which can
be seen in “Infinite Shades of Gray.”
He, along with many other Japanese Americans, were very dominant
in the field of pictorial photography prior to their
incarceration.
“All of us that come from immigrant parents and
grandparents have a picture of them as hard working laborers or
merchants and never looked at them as artists. They were here also
for the artistic scheme of the U.S.” Nakamura said.
A migrant worker looks through the lens at his own dire living
situation during the shooting of "Rancho California (por
favor)."
Currently, Nakamura is showing his film at the Fifth Annual
Double Take Documentary Film Festival in Durham, N.C. “Toyo
Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray” is also in competition at
the Worldfest Houston International Film Festival.
Both “Rancho California” and “Toyo Miyatake:
Infinite Shades of Gray” bring to light issues that are tough
to swallow and at the same time provoke and engage the viewer into
seeing life through the eyes of the extraordinary lives profiled in
these films.
“Rancho California (por favor)” and “Toyo
Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray” will be shown on Monday,
April 8, in the James Bridges Theater at 7:30 p.m. There will be a
reception and Q&A following the screening. All events are free
and open to the public. Box office and general information is
available at (310) 206-8365.