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Plot:
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This exquisitely-wrought chronicle of two generations
of a Los Angeles Mexican family will have audiences
smiling through their tears. The tale is told
by the family writer, Paco Sanchez and begins
in revolution-torn Mexico. Young Jose Sanchez
tires of the turmoil and lack of work and decides
to head north to a "little village called Los
Angeles." Having no sense of geography, he figures
he can walk there in about a week. One year and
many adventures later, he finally makes it to
the East side of the idyllic young city. He goes
to the home of his distant uncle, "El Californio,"
a man who came to LA when it was still Mexican
territory and who refuses to acknowledge it as
part of the U.S. It is a humble house located
near the bridge that links the Latino community
to the city and in the back is a good-sized, never-green
cornfield. Like many others of his barrio, Jose
must cross the bridge each day to work in the
gardens and homes of wealthy Anglo patrons, something
Jose does with pride. He eventually marries the
beautiful Maria (Jennifer Lopez) and they start
a family. They lead a simple but happy life until
the Depression hits and the Anglos begin pushing
to have all the job-stealing immigrants sent back
south. Though the again-pregnant Maria was born
and raised in LA, she is captured during an immigration
raid one day, trundled onto a freight train and
sent into deepest Mexico. Poor Jose, his son Paco
and children have no idea why Maria has vanished.
Eventually, she bears her second son, Chucho,
and though he is still tiny, decides that she
will walk home. Nothing detains the determined
woman, not even the raging spring-time freshet
of the Rio Grande, and though she and Chucho nearly
lose their lives, somehow she makes it home. Years
pass and the children grow up amidst many joys
and travails (as Paco says "the difference between
a family emergency and a party wasn't that big"),
each totally different from the other, but all
united by the unspoken strength of their family
ties
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©
2004, 