Reviews - Trinity University

Mi Familia/My Family
tity. He has no clear understanding of how his present reality
is mediated by his past and unpredictable future. Herein lies
his inability to understand the social changes that have impacted
his family, particularly his son Chucho’s behavior and
lifestyle. As Juan holds the stalks of corn in his hands, his
remembrance of the past has become distorted and romanticized
because he feels a sense of loss and longing for the familiar,
for a less complicated form of existence, which can
never be reproduced. His is the anxiety expressed in Walter
Benjamin’s “Angelus NOVUS,” caught with longing for the past
and rendered immobile by the storm of progre~s.’~ Memo represents
the storm of the future (progress) that is the prospective
loss of Mexican culture. In contrast, Jimmy has retained
some aspects of the culture (his bilingualism, friendships with
other Latinas/os, his vernacular mode of dress) and this connects
him more closely to Juan. Jimmy functions in that temporal
space of disjointed emotional angst, caught between
rebellion and a desire to belong to the society that has marked
him, not only as “other” but as a social casualty best forgotten.
Although he recognizes the social injustice that surrounds
him, he is cognizant of his inability to change it. This is shown
when Jimmy arrives at the hospital to find his wife Isabel
(Elpidia Carrillo) dying of childbirth due to the hospital’s discriminatory
neglect. At first, he reacts to his loss by assaulting
the physician, but then he retreats at the prospect of a
further confrontation with the hospital staff. Jimmy, like the
“Angelus NOVUS,” is unable to control the piles of wreckage
(social injustice past and present) hurled at him. He cannot
change the past and the present poses little hope that he will
mold the future. Ultimately, it is Carlitos who holds the promise
of progress for the culture, although Nava’s portrayal of
his character leaves this potential uncertain.
In conclusion, the theme of remembrance reverberates
throughout the film, with historical echoes of a cultural past
that is nearly forgotten and now must be reinvented in the
context of the present. One may continue to ponder whether
Nava essentialized and romanticized the concept of family,
certainly there is space for further investigation. What is important,
however, is that the film makes an attempt to address
the historic legacy of the Mexican-American struggle. The story
of family and social conflict needs to continue to be told with
more gender equity and without a Hollywood gloss that de-
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