Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-US: ‘The Gatekeeper’ Shows Plight of Mexican Migrants

Carin Zissis

NEW YORK, Apr 20 2004 (IPS) - "Welcome to California," says an undocumented Mexican lab worker after showing how to make the drug methamphetamine by mixing toxic chemicals over a burner in a dim, windowless shack.

The scene is from "The Gatekeeper," a drama tracing the experiences of a group of Mexicans who illegally cross the Tijuana-San Diego border. After arriving in the United States, the migrants are forced to work making the highly addictive street drug, also known as "speed" or "meth", to pay off their passage.

The film, which opened Apr. 2 in New York and is set for release on Apr.30 in Miami, was directed and written by Tijuana-born Juan Carlos Frey, who also played the lead role.

After growing up in Southern San Diego County near the border and 17 years of acting in Hollywood, Frey is travelling the country promoting his film in hopes of bringing awareness about human rights issues along the border. "The people I’m trying to reach are the people who have no clue and will go see a film," said 40-year old Frey.

According to the research organisation Migration Information Source, there were 9.2 million undocumented immigrants in the United States as of March 2002, including 5.3 million Mexicans. Approximately 1,400 people died trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border between 1995 and 2000.

But Frey stresses that he wanted to give a human face to the numbers. "I wanted it to be about the individuals – not about politics, not immigration law, but the people themselves."

The story is a fictional account, though Frey interviewed over 630 undocumented migrants about their experiences to formulate his screenplay.

"Most people I had spoken to were willing to divulge all of this personal information because there didn’t seem to be an outlet for them," said Frey, adding that many women told him of being raped during their crossing.

After starting his interviews seven years ago, Frey began hearing a common story from male migrants: almost 100 of them were forced to pay off their passage into the U.S. by working in southern Californian labs making methamphetamine.

A total of 1,262 meth labs were seized in California in 2002, up from 566 in 1995, according to the El Paso Intelligence Center’s National Clandestine Laboratory Seizure System.

Forced drug labour camps have been brought to light by major media such as The New York Times, and Frey decided to work the theme into the screenplay.

The film is named for Operation Gatekeeper, initiated by the U.S. government in 1994 with the building of a 14-mile fence stretching from the Pacific to the mountains east of San Diego.

The plot centres around a racist U.S. border patrol guard named Adam Fields – played by Frey – who conceals his Mexican heritage while participating actively in a right-wing vigilante group called the National Patrol, based on real groups like American Border Patrol.

The opening scene shows a grainy, infrared shot of migrants creeping through the low brush of a desolate landscape. A radio broadcast voiceover by the vigilante group leader warns of a Mexican invasion and closes with the question, "Do you want to eat beans and tortillas for the rest of your life?"

In a scheme to expose how migrants are smuggled across the border, Fields goes undercover to Mexico and crosses back into California with a group of Mexican migrants.

"He starts to get to know them and know their struggles and know why they come to this country, and he has a change of heart," said Frey.

"I think that that’s what it would take to change Americans’ point of view about who these people are – by maybe trying on the shoes of these immigrants through a film for an hour and a half to see what it must be like to be one of them."

Frey identifies with the transformation that the lead character experiences. Born to a Mexican mother and Swiss father, he has green eyes and light brown hair.

He dropped his middle name – Carlos – and hid his Mexican background as a child growing up in southern San Diego county. "I would assume that most people don’t identify me as being Latin when they meet me. I can pass – and I did," explained Frey.

When Frey was 16 years old, his mother was walking near the San Diego border without her U.S. citizenship papers and was mistakenly deported by border patrol officers.

She called her family several hours later from a detention centre in Tijuana asking to get picked up. "It was a real source of shame for my mom. She was very hurt by it," said Frey. "I became conscientious of denying my identity. I couldn’t continue to do that and have my mother have that kind of an insult."

But making the film also changed Frey, who has worked on sit-coms and soap operas, and has been in 13 beer commercials. "I’m not the same person. I never intended before to become an activist," he said.

Frey assembled a professional cast and crew, shooting the film in 18 days with a budget of $200,000. "The Gatekeeper" has earned ten film festival awards and endorsements from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International since it was completed in January 2002.

A Spanish subtitled version is ready for release in Latin America, and the film has been shown in 15 U.S cities.

Frey plans to be involved in future film projects that elevate the image of Latinos in the media. For now he continues promoting "The Gatekeeper," and hopes the film will leave audiences with a greater concern about border issues.

"I want people to wake up the next morning and still have it teasing their brain," said Frey. "I don’t want them to leave with a happy feeling because what I am trying to reveal through the film is ongoing. Today there is no resolution."