What kind of American Dream awaits immigrants in the US?
- Text by HUCK HQ
Since Katrina, thousands of Latin Americans have moved to Louisiana to work on reconstruction efforts. Many have stayed, and many more have followed over the years, fleeing gang war, violence and poverty back home.
In November 2014, President Obama introduced legislation to protect up to 5 million people from deportation. Protection extends to those who arrived in the U.S. before 2010 and whose kids are American citizens or hold a green card – but does not address the flow of people arriving daily. Today millions of people remain untouched by the new measure, living in the shadows, and illegal in the eyes of the law.
In this episode of Huck Across America – our ongoing exploration of the state of the American Dream – we enter the lives of people who have braved borders in search of a better life, and get a feel for the obstacles and challenges that meet them once they settle on the other side.
We meet Omar, a cook from Mexico who struggles to make ends meet, his Guatemalan housemate Javier, who’s studying for a degree, and Isabel, who saw her husband killed by drug lords back in Honduras and fled with her two young children, leaving her teenage boy behind.
And then there’s Julia, who has had an ankle monitor on for four months. Her crime: crossing the southern border into the US to escape gang war in Honduras.
Another Home: Life Beyond The Border looks at the many lives of immigrants to the US, and at the stigmatising language that permeates most conversations on the issue.
Watch Episode One: The Town That Hippies Built.
Directed by Smriti Keshari, edited by Isabel Freeman.
You might like
Confronting America’s history of violence against student protest
Through A Mirror, Darkly — In May 1970, two separate massacres at American college campuses saw deaths at the hands of the state. Naeem Mohaiemen’s new three-channel film memorialises the brutality.
Written by: Miss Rosen
New film champions women surfers tackling the huge waves of Nazaré
Undercurrents — Filmmaker Maddie Meddings’ latest documentary focuses on big-wave superstar Laura Crane as she helps prepare 16-year-old Imari Hearn to take up big wave surfing.
Written by: Sydney Lobe
New documentary spotlights Brixton’s community in the face of gentrification
Beyond Brix & Mortar — With property prices rising by 1,700% since the ’80s, the film explores the rich cultural history of the area’s Afro-Caribbean community, and the threat to the area’s soul.
Written by: Sydney Lobe
On the set of ‘La Bamba’, lost Latino legend Ritchie Valens’s biopic
The overnight rockstar — The Chicano rock & roll star exploded overnight in the late ’50s, but just as quickly he was gone, killed in a plane crash along with Buddy Holly. An ’80s biopic saw him immortalised on the big screen, which photographer Merrick Morton captured behind the scenes.
Written by: Miss Rosen
Louis Theroux’s ‘Manosphere’ shows men aren’t the problem, platforms are
No Ws for Good Men — The journalist’s new documentary sees him dive headfirst into the toxicities and machinations of the male influencer economy. But when young creators are monetarily incentivised to make more and more outrageous content, who really is to blame?
Written by: Emma Garland
Inside Bombay Beach, California’s ‘Rotting Riviera’
Man-made decay — The Salton Sea was created by accident after a failed attempt to divert the Colorado River in the early 20th century. Jack Burke reports from its post-apocalyptic shores, where DIY art and ecological collapse meet.
Written by: Jack Burke
