“I can’t imagine bringing my child up in Columbia.
Not with the situation as it is.”
- Carla, Columbian immigrant to America and expectant mother
For our monthly movie group, two of my friends and I watched the Spanish language film Maria Full of Grace. It tells the story of Maria Alvarez, a young Columbian woman dealing with a crisis pregnancy and struggling to survive as the sole provider for her family. But everything changes when Maria accepts an offer to become a drug mule, smuggling heroin into the United States for the promise of big paycheck and a chance to travel. Her journey is marked by danger and tragedy but also by hope and the promise of rebirth.
In reflecting on this film, as well as the other two films our group has screened, Staci noted that POWER was a reoccurring theme in each. She commented that “powerlessness is a universal feeling of young girls” and that in Maria’s story that sense of powerlessness was intensified by her location. Staci asked, “What options did she have for control?” It seemed that the treacherous world of drug trafficking represented Maria’s only chance to change the course of her life.
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05-11-2007 |
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