Leer en español. (Read in English).
By Rodrigo Reyes*
The sun was setting, the summer heat of Michoacán softened into an embrace of fresh and loving light, and there I was, creeping along at a slow pace in my rental car, observing all the details of the ranch, spellbound by the beautiful combination of remembrance and discovery that marks the spaces dear to our memory. El Barrio seemed suspended in time. On the left lay the plot where my grandfather had once grown sugarcane; up ahead rose the tiny, humpbacked bridge that witnessed so many adventures in my family’s mythology.
I advanced following the single, sleepy street, pulled by the warm flame of recognition, when I ran into a series of gigantic houses—pretentious behemoths decked out with dozens of windows and balconies that clambered atop three, even four stories. What most disturbed me was to discover that they were all empty shells, without people. With their ear-splitting silence, these homes declared their frightful wealth to the world, marring the face of the twilight with their colossal shadows.
I parked at the little house in front of the church and a man immediately sighted me from his patio. At first he glared at me, with a harsh, suspicious look framed by his cowboy hat with a miniature pom-pom hovering over his back. The uncertainty lingered for a second until he recognized me and his face was taken over by the rascally, seductive smile that is the hallmark of the Reyes men. He was my great uncle, and even though he was baptized Rafael, everyone called him El Pollito, or Uncle Chicken. It never occurred to me to ask him why.
I had traveled from Oakland to Michoacán with the idea of shooting a short film about the parents and grandparents of migrants who after enduring twenty, even thirty years of separation, had finally received that longed-for visa to fly north and reunify with their undocumented loved ones. The government program that had facilitated the process bore a name that was both corny and tragic: Messenger Pigeons. The truth is that thanks to blind bureaucratic luck, geopolitical ambitions and perhaps a bit of mercy and decency, families that had endured the torture of years apart would finally catch a break: for 90 days, they would be granted a visa to enter the United States and see their loved ones.
Every corner of Michoacán is scarred by the bitemarks of this economy of expulsion and absence. Yet it was no coincidence that I had found a story for my film that lived so close to my parents’ homeland, or that I had arrived a few days before kicking off the shoot, with enough time to visit El Pollito in that valley on the outskirts of Cotija.
My uncle was a man that was easy to love. Soon after meeting him, affection would blossom in your heart, a simple and direct reflection of his spirit. He had a deep and slow laugh, bursting with joy and breaking out of him like the sonorous note of a seashell or a drum buried deep inside his chest. His sincerity is difficult to put in words. A “yes” was always clearly so, and a handshake carried the gift of his word and his love. It had been ten years since I last visited the ranch, but my uncle’s every gesture let me know that I was still his blood.
During those days together, we lived through a couple of adventures I still treasure. Riding in his beautifully beat-up Datsun truck, we wandered the district, visiting the market of the big town of Cotija, admiring the crafting of the most delicious cheese in the world (made with pure milk and sea salt), and eating scraped tostadas with a salsa laced with fresh hot peppers and cola in the tiny plaza of El Barrio. I still sigh when I recall how El Pollito and my aunt María still lived in love, playful and attentive to each other, after nearly half a century together.
We were riding in the little truck down the highway of giants, enormous eucalyptus that guarded the outskirts of town. It was my last day before taking off and we had just run an errand I cannot remember, when we hit a series of speed bumps, right in front of a check-point full of cops lulled half-asleep by the midday heat. I think I made a comment about how the officers seemed bored.
My uncle looked at them with scorn and began telling a horrifying story: just one day before I arrived, there was an incredible gunfight between two rival sides. God-fearing folks bunkered up in their homes but the hours went by, and the bullets kept flying. Finally there was a pause, a long moment of silence that promised an end to the battle. A church chaplain who was visiting the home of a faithful family got up on his feet and declared he was sick of waiting and was going home. Against all pleas and warnings, he said a courteous goodbye, got into his car, drove for a block, turned a corner and was hit by a storm of crossfire. Both sides had confused the chaplain with the enemy.
Too bad. When it’s your turn, it’s your turn. El Pollito smiled dryly, and at that moment, I could not resist the urge to ask him about his son in California. Perhaps my brain had linked the everydayness of violence, my uncle's dry smile and the looming image of the enormously empty houses, made with money from who-knows-where—all this with the need to flee and the idea of absence. My uncle stared firmly ahead. I thought he would not respond. But after a brief pause, without taking his eyes off the road, he said:
“Who knows if I will get to see him. We asked for the visa. Lots of people here have gotten it. Hopefully in a few months I’ll be over there, on the other side. It’s been about 20 years since I last saw Rafael, my oldest child.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I bumbled through a few vapid words of hope, without much faith. I know that my uncle carried many health issues in his swollen legs and his cold hands that could never warm up.
El Pollito looked at me without blinking, and without a spark of self-pity.
“And if it doesn’t happen for me, well that’s as far as we got. The ballad has been sung.”
What is a film? Perhaps it is a shared dream. There is something comforting in thinking that cinema is or maybe can become so. And when I revisit the dream of this lovely, brief film, I think of that other dream that I lived with El Pollito.
When the time came, I moved on with my journey and shot the film. I returned to California and visited my parents for lunch. We spoke for a long while about my visit to their homeland. Soon after, driven by the news I shared, my father read the moment and traveled on his own to see his uncle. A few weeks later, in the waning days of that summer, El Pollito died. Neither the world nor life itself allowed him to become a pigeon and travel to the other side to see his children.
As I return to Abuelos, I cannot help but remember the pain of my uncle and I can feel once again, the true dimensions of longing. We have taught ourselves to ignore this love when we accept that some of us have the right to embrace our children while others have to waste their life waiting on the lottery of power.
I want to name this pain without recriminations. I keep it in my memory so that I can remember the price paid by so many grandparents living and waiting south of the border, singing their ballad.
Abuelos is current streaming for free on CiNEOLA.
*Director Rodrigo Reyes (Mexico City, 1983), makes films deeply grounded in his identity as an immigrant artist, crafting a poetic gaze from the margins, using striking imagery to portray the contradictory nature of our shared world, while revealing the potential for transformative change. He has received the support of The Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), Sundance and Tribeca Institutes, while his films have screened on PBS and Netflix. His film 499, won Best Cinematography at Tribeca and the Special Jury Award at Hot Docs. Rodrigo is a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim and Creative Capital Awards, as well as the Rainin Fellowship and the SF Indie Vanguard Award.
