Thoughts on Documentary Which Way Home

This weekend with my eleven year old son, I watched the 2009 documentary Which Way Home.



This documentary shows children from Guatemala and Mexico who leave their families to try to illegally immigrate to the United States of America by traveling on various routes, the main being riding on top of freight trains. The children leave their homes and the mothers they love (there is an absence of biological and/or loving father figures in the kids featured in this film) in order to seek a better life and to earn money in order to live better themselves and to send money back home to help their suffering, poverty-stricken mothers.

This is a heart-breaking movie. I never even knew that minor aged boys and girls are on the road to illegally immigrate to America. I assumed the only kids who arrived here came with loving parents.

The dangers of crossing the desert, which can take three days at its fastest, are repeated often in the film. The dangers of working with smugglers is repeated. Everyone is told to not trust anyone. Kids are robbed and beaten by Mexican police. Stories of rape of women and girls are told, and are witnessed by one boy (the rapes are not shown in the film thank goodness).

Most children seek money and just want to work for a decent wage (defined by one boy as $5 a day). One boy discusses education and the desire to become a doctor. With prodding from an adult helping the runaways, a few other kids say they want to study and become doctors to help people who need it.

A shelter in Houston Texas is shown which takes in "unclaimed minors". The kids and their parents back home hope that American families will adopt them and give them a new life. The shelter in Houston seems like a jail to me with small uncomfortable (but clean and safe) rooms and they only let the kids outside one hour a day except for a three hour time slot on weekends. They are schooled there as well. The boy shown hated it there as it was not life in America as he'd imagined (to be honest it was not a typical American life of a child). I won't spoil it by telling you what happens.

My son's eyes were opened as were mine. I will have my fourteen year old watch this, and hopefully my husband also. I know my younger son got a dose of reality and realized he's really got a great life, despite our family's plans not going ideally in our pursuit of the American Dream.

I have no passed down stories from my ancestors about why they immigrated to America (which is a shame). My husband has few stories. Both of our families concentrated on scraping together a life in America just to survive and then in future generations thriving occurred. They wanted to forget their hardship and focus on enjoying the good they had today. They wanted to forget their past and enjoy the present day.

My family comes from a poverty background and suffering was had even in the USA as it was before the time of government handouts. My family was hungry and poor and many of my family members had to quit school at young ages to support the family. There are stories of houses burning down (in the day before homeowner's insurance) and having to live with neighbors. Up to 22 people had lived in my grandmother's small home when they took in friends, neighbors and family who had hardships. Family members entered the military and fought in wars as their main escape and only route to a better life, and to get away from their poor families to try to become financially self-sufficient (since local jobs were not available and they had no skills after graduating from public schools). So, despite having left something undesirable my family did not find a cushy life in America, some suffered here for generations but still found ways to feel happy with their lives. Others in my family were unhappy people.

Back to the documentary, I think it is a shame that somehow the message is getting lost in our culture to not understand how people are living in other countries and how great life in America really is. I have a fair number of people around me who seem to hate America as it is today, and want it to change into a socialist country. They see America as a mess and have dreams of a utopia. I don't think those people have a clue how good they really have it and how bad some people living in other types of governments have it. If they did why would they want this government to turn into the government that has made a mess of countries X, Y, and Z?

Meanwhile I am tempted to find that Houston shelter for unclaimed minors and figure out how I can adopt one of the kids there, so they don't have to go back to a place where they suffer and have no chance for a better life. Watching this documentary was painful for me as I wanted to rescue all of the kids.

Everyone should watch this documentary.

Disclosure: I have nothing to disclose.