Ya No Estoy Aquí?(2019): A Case Study of Chicano & Latino Representation in Indie Cinema
CHICANOS AND LATINOS IN HOLLYWOOD
Chicanos and Latinos have been protagonists in Hollywood stories as marginal and underdeveloped characters projected through stereotypes. Very few were involved in filmmaking or appeared as actors in films with some being from economically privileged backgrounds. Although Latinos appeared in silent westerns as the antagonist, Chicanos were represented on screen as lazy and untrustworthy bandits (Encyclopedia). There was also the developing traits of passionate and sexual individuals paired with negative traits such as aggression and sadomasochism reflected through Chicano and Latino roles.?Latino and Chicanos found themselves marginalized in minor roles that caused them to exaggerate their accents for comic relief and be viewed as criminals with a lack of good intentions. Behind the camera in 2019, only 4.5% of directors in Hollywood were Hispanic or Latino out of 1,300 films; there were 35 individual Hispanic or Latino directors with 34.4% of these directors born in the United States and 65.7% were international (USC Annenberg).?Stereotypes were the most common roles in Hollywood films and therefore, led to Chicanos and Latinos to take matters into their own hands as their approach to filmmaking has roots of political activism during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
?
CHICANO AND LATINO MOVEMENT THROUGH FILMMAKING
The start of Chicano and Latino films began to pick up near the timing of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s in which Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans faced discrimination, educational segregation, voting rights, and ethic stereotyping. Activists revolted with the origin of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement in which had more focus on Mexican-Americans who were viewed less than Americans considering their lifestyle outside of city areas as rural farmers and migrant workers (Library of Congress). Given that Chicanos and Latinos were not granted similar opportunities as those from a dominant society, they turned to dance and music to express their political and social beliefs against society and Hollywood and eventually branched out into film to give their voices a platform of their own. Filmmakers such as Moctesuma Esparza, Sylvia Morales, Jesus Salvador Tevi?o, Susan Racho, and Luis Valdez were some of the first Latinos to attend film schools and receive formal training to embrace their roles as activists and filmmakers.
Studio films carry out larger budgets with opportunities to expand on stories while independent films are limited to smaller budgets Hollywood is in the business of “entertainment” while independent films challenge viewers with difficult subject matter (Ortner 2). Such films embrace harsh realism in which the stories apply darker realities in contemporary life that demands viewers to engage with these unfamiliar experiences and accept them. Fernando Frías de la Parra—a Mexican documentary filmmaker, screenwriter, and award-winning director—purposefully went into a deeper journey of learning about the Cholombiano (or Kolombiano) subculture of slowed down Cumbia dancing known as Cumbia Rebajada, the oversized streetwear, and exotic hairstyles worn by this particular culture in his film?Ya No Estoy Aquí?(2019).?
?
Ya No Estoy Aquí?(2019)?
?A 2019 original Mexican Spanish-language indie film written and directed by Fernando Frías de la Parra and stars Juan Daniel Garcia Trevi?o as Ulises. The film was an approach to documenting the Cholombiano and Monterrey culture that has been misrepresented by society.
PLOT
17-year-old Ulises flees to Queens, New York from the dangers of his home in Monterrey, Mexico. Back in Monterrey where he spends his time running around the streets with his gang,?Los Terkos, and dancing in their free time, the group seeks money from students outside of a school to purchase an MP3 player when they are confronted by a member of?Los F, an organized criminal group as a way to scare off Los Terkos from the area. Later on, Ulises steals a hand radio from the police after the criminal group was arrested. Soon after, Ulises witnesses a drive-by shooting of the?Los F?where one of the survivors believes Ulises setup the gang after a location was picked up by the radio. With Ulises's family and his own life in danger, Ulises's mother uses favors owed to her to help smuggle him into America to stay out of danger. After being smuggled in a van across the border, Ulises arrives in Queens, New York and lives with laborer workers who taunt him for his inability to speak English, his lack of success in manual labor work, and his overall taste in style and music. Homeless and lost in a strange place interlaced with flashbacks of his life in Monterrey, Ulises finds shelter on the rooftop of a shop where he befriends Lin, the daughter of the Chinese shop owner who Ulises finds difficult to communicate with. The only way Ulises finds a way to feel at home again is through dance, but with his language barrier in America, he is eventually taken in by immigration officers where he eventually returns to Monterey. He discovers his old life has changed before his eyes as his gang separated from each other and he is no longer recognized as Ulises. Now, Ulises is mentally, emotionally, and metaphorically no longer there.?
?
FORMAL CONVENTIONS CHARACTERISTICS OF INDIE CINEMA
The representation of Chicanos telling stories without being limited or controlled by major studios allows for authenticity of culture to mold such indie films. A realistic representation of minorities struggling within a dominant society needs to portray a historical and material situation as well as establish real differences between minorities and the dominant society (Williams 15). In other words, proposing a historical event and/or a situation in which Chicanos and Latinos—for example—face can be told within a narrative that?defines how these ethnic groups are culturally, politically, socially, and oftentimes economically different from dominant groups such as Caucasians in the United states. In?Ya No Estoy Aqui?(2019), Ulises struggles to adapt to his new environment in New York while experiencing life in exile rather than living comfortably with his people and homeland. While trying to be himself along the borderline of American culture, Ulises struggles to blend in as he is an outcast who cannot seem to adapt and instead continues to carry on his Cholombiano style of Cumbia dancing and his unique appearance without given in to change. Ulises and the rest of Frías’s vision of a Chicano narrative connects with Janet Staiger’s four formal convection characteristics of indie cinema in which the audience identifies with such stories and encounters a new way of looking at the world from the filmmaker’s perspective using:?(1)?dialogue for purpose rather than advancement of plot,?(2)?“quirky” or odd characters,?(3)?emphasis on certain methods of creating verisimilitude, and?(4)?ambiguity and intertextuality in narrative and narration (Berliner 59).?
?
(1) DIALOGUE
Ya No Estoy Aqui reveals more dialogue versus action. Although Indie cinema focus on dialogue, Ulises’s form of dialogue is spoken through his movements of Cumbia dancing. Language barriers are common throughout the film as Ulises only speaks Spanish and is unfamiliar with the English language. His communication with Lin—the one and only person he truly interacts with in New York—is complex in the sense that he speaks to her in Spanish with hand gestures and eventually music to allow him to feel less excluded from society in America. He has a brutally honest and straightforward personality while he is in Mexico and in the United States. Given his language barrier with individuals outside of his social bubble, he speaks with a tone of dullness as if America is slowly breaking him apart. As most of the action occurs when Ulises is running away from danger in Mexico and when he is attacked by labor workers in America, the film itself is heavily composed of dancing and silence from Ulises that allows the audience to feel and understand the exile he faces while being alone in a strange new place. As Ulises speaks more with Los Terkos compared to the individuals he meets in the United States, he is an awfully quiet but expresses himself through movement versus words.
?
(2) THE “ODD” PROTAGONIST
Ulises represents an odd character in the sense that is is openminded at home and closed off in America while not given into blending in with new environments. While in Mexico, Ulises was still looked at differently by adults who commented on his appearance and poor choices pertaining to his gang life. While in America, Ulises does not give in to becoming apart of the American culture the way Lin, a Chinese-American social butterfly, who tries to be more American than embrace her Chinese culture. Ulises makes it clear that he is pride of who is and where he comes from, but he does it in a way that does not require effort to flaunt himself. Instead, Ulises is an outcast in the sense that he does not share the same language, the same clothing, technology, and other privileges Americans have. He is an outsider looking in on a culture he is unamused by and rather stick to what he knows best of being an immigrant and a Terko.?
In Monterrey, Cholombianos formed as a genre of Cumbia-dancing teens who dress in oversized cargo pants, plaid and Hawaiian button-ups, t-shirts with Mexicano religious iconography, airbrushed graffiti, hand woven necklaces with names, and sculptured hairstyles (George). The purpose of these intricate styles highlight a passion for cambia and the refusal of complying with societal norms. Fernando Frías created Ulises to embody the Cholombiano culture that no longer exists.??
?
Ulises’s iconic haircut represents cultural roots of who he really is—an immigrant from Mexico who identifies as a Terko, dancing his way to a carefree lifestyle and embracing his Chicano background. Throughout the film, Ulises is questioned about his hair by his own family and eventually other characters he encounters in America as he lives in exile while fleeing from the dangers of Monterrey. Considering Ulises’s refusal to change who he is while surviving life in Queens, New York, Ulises comes face-to-face with an identity crisis where he eventually cuts off his own hair. In historical terms, the cutting of hair represents a symbol of identity and by removing it, it displays both humiliation and a sign of exile similar to Chinese Prisoners during the Pigtail Ordinance of 1878 where prisoners had their hair cut as a way to disgrace them, Nazi’s removed Jews’ peyote and beards, Mexico executed the act of army and police cutting off sideburns of Columbians, and Native American’s having their hair cut off in Indian Boarding Schools (Lopez). By cutting his own hair, Ulises subjects himself to exile from his own identity and home of Monterrey.?
?
(3) CULTURE & IDENTITY ESTABLISHING VERISIMILITUDE THROUGH FILM STYLE
The verisimilitude created within the story begins with Ulises’s arrival in New York where he is forced to figure out how to survive a completely new setting. In a way, this is a cultural reset in which the audience may or may not be familiar with. In a way, the audience can connect past experiences of transferring from middle school to high school, changing a job position, moving into a new house all play pivotal roles in their lives in which relate back to Ulises starting a new chapter in his own life. We become familiar with the fact that Ulises is protecting and defining his identity but returns his home where his world is completely gone which he questions his identify now that he has to undergo a change.?
?
CASTING
There was also the rawness of non-actors casted for the lead and supporting roles representing Ulises’s gang,?Los Terkos. In this case, non-actors enriched the film with more natural and expressive individuals who brought the story to life rather than having professional actors rehearse each scene to eventually become unnatural and less believable to the audience. As the film focuses on Ulises’s interior life, outside characters each have their own personalities to help represent the cultural lifestyles Ulises embodies. In this case,?Los Terkos?embrace a form of Chicano street culture that allows them to stand out from the rest of society not only as character’s of a story, but as individuals taking on such roles int he film to represent the language, music, style, and overall life in Monterrey, Mexico seen on screen. Each non-actor was casted out of personal connection to living in Monterrey and being aware of the Cumbia music style that symbolizes a non-human protagonist of the film that connects the characters and the locations Ulises both associates and interacts with.?
?
LOCATIONS
There is genuine thought added to casting as well as embracing the use of carefully planned locations to help present the real world in terms of Monterrey, Mexico and Queens, New York. With references to a gritty and rundown version of these two parallel worlds, Mexico and New York almost resemble one another in the sense that they both carry out their own downfalls of violence, discrimination, and exile while both are distinct in terms of one being labeled a home while the other is a strange place to Ulises.?
In Monterrey, Mexico, the violence, drug crimes, and gang life is in contact motion evolving throughout the streets of Mexico (Los Angeles Times). Life in Monterrey is defined to be traumatizing with drugs and gang violence being common factors that make this location avoided by Mexican society, which is what influenced the time period of?Ya No Estoy Aquí?set between 2011 and 2012 when drug wars impacted the area and President Felipe Calderón was in office in Mexico to help represent the youth culture and their life on the streets and influenced by gangs and crime. Not only is the film portraying realistic representation of Monterrey youth within a dominant society of being frowned upon by the wealthier individuals of the country, but the audience gains an experience of living within the lives of the characters throughout the film (Bozz).?
?
FRAMING
Framing, in a way, helps convey a story through the positioning of the camera in a scene to portray a focus on someone or something in particular. Fernando Frías carefully mapped out how shots of each scene would be executed in the final version of the film where the framing speaks for itself beyond dialogue. Between Monterey and Queens, both locations are different in that they are located in different countries. Between Monterrey and Queens, it is clear each place is located in different countries; however, they both share the same type of location representing a gritty, run-down depiction of society and civilization around it. The structure of buildings crammed together and bodegas scattered around town are present in New York in a more claustrophobic manner while Monterrey has a more physically spaced out setting. At the same time, the locations are meant to be observed the same way by the audience with the help of the music’s tempo and the framing of each scene to interlace the flashbacks of Mexico and the present day in Queens as if jump cuts of time are carefully alternating throughout the film. Master shots are commonly utilized to highlight the setting and the protagonist interacting with it. Ulises is seen in Figure 1B where he dances alone to Cumbia Rebajada in Monterrey while Figure 1C displays Ulises triggering his culture whether he is on homeland or in a strange place. The director purposely presents?wide shots?in both locations to serve as a comparison of parallel settings between each location having similarities in terms of the grit and street life elements both carry out.
?
Near the beginning of the film, Ulises sits in a vehicle prior to leaving Mexico includes a?medium close-up?displaying his expression of dread through his poker face. (Figure 1D). His sense of emotions are not as clear cut as most individuals who become more emotional when encountering change, but instead Ulises puts on a bare-face and tough persona to refrain from appearing weak. Not only is Ulises putting his guard up, but he clearly does not show even when he cuts off his iconic hairstyle after giving up his identity. The ending scene of Ulises dancing alone through a medium close-up shot (Figure 1E) that signifies a crucial moment where Ulises has come to the realization and acceptance that he is not living the same life he had before leaving to New York. Just like Hollywood films, close-ups reveal more emotion from the characters themselves, which is why the audience both feels and understands the protagonist in a much more raw attempt of reality reflected within indie films.?
?
?
领英推荐
(4) AMBUIGUITY IN NARRATIVE
Fernando Frías obtained the responsibility of presenting the film as a sort of documentary in which the audience follows along the protagonist and his experience of fleeing to America only to return to a sudden change in his hometown. In this case, direct cinema is exemplified in?Ya No Estoy Aquí?as it provides a fly-on-the-wall approach utilized in independent films where the story serves to explore deeper into the neglected groups of American society (Allen 164-165). By using the direct cinema style to portray the representation of Chicanos on screen, the plot unfolds not only cinematically but it provides a raw series of small events that lead to Ulises encountering reality outside of his comfort zone.?The film leaves room for ambiguity where the audience can question the purpose of the film’s use of dancing as well as why Ulises undergoes a physical, mental, and emotional reset that transforms his entire life.
Frías embodies the struggles of outsiders and foreigners adapting into a new place. Although the United States has divided views on immigration and migration, the film purposefully reflects a deeper insight into the life of an immigrant, his personal lifestyle, and how he tries to flee from danger. The idea of people migrating into new territory has been controversial throughout history in terms of Mexicans and other minority groups trying to settle in America as it is considered a land filled with hopes and dreams. Though the film does not focus on the American Dream, the story itself stands on it’s own as a movement piece where the audience can learn and understand the struggles of the protagonist as a foreigner to a new environment as well as the social, economical, and political conflicts faced in Monterrey, Mexico during the timeperioo in which the film was set in. Frías molds the film into one that establishes that not all immigrants entering America want to be there and instead have no other option of being there when he or she faces dangerous circumstances (Film Independent). The story of a teenager who embraces his identity only to completely eliminate it can be interpreted through a similarity amongst other ethnic groups as well as social class categories where individuals identify themselves with one group and eventually break away from that identity. Had Ulises been a Mexican immigrant from a wealthy family, the concepts of gang life, violence, drugs, and migration into America would not be as prominent as Ulises who is from a lower class family and lives in the rubbles and corruption of north Mexico.?
?
CONCLUSION
The ending of the film leaves the audience questioning Ulises’s identity after returning back to Monterey where his old life is no longer in existence. Fernando Frías has Ulises dance one last time with his freshly cut hair and his MP3 player blasting Cumbia while he overlooks violent gangs taking over Monterey. As the MP3 player dies out on Ulises, the films leaves the curiosity of who will Ulises be now that Los Terkos are no longer banded together and his Cholombiano style has died out.?Ya No Estoy Aquí?embodies the truth of reality and it’s consequences the audience may not fully accept but grow to learn and accept it through the protagonist’s experience int he film. The audience follows along a fictional but real-world narrative that makes the film universal through human experience and allows for interpretation’s of the film’s overall message to be decoded by the audience’s personal insight on hoe he or she perceives the film. Is he lonely like Ulises? Has she been stuck in an identity crisis? are they all dancing alone in their own lives? These are the questions that leaves the audience questing how they view the world, and more specifically, how they perceive Chicanos and Latinos portrayed through film.?
?
?
?
Works Cited
Allen, Michael. Chapter 6: Going it alone - Independent American Cinema. Contemporary US Cinema. Pearson Education. PDF. 2003.?
?
Berliner, Todd. Legally Independent: The Exhibition of Independent Art Films. Hisotry Journal of Film, Radio, and Television. 2018. Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 54-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2017.1285148
?
Bozzi, María Raquel. Netflix’s I'M NO LONGER HERE (YA NO ESTOY ACQUI) | Fernando Frías de la Parra | Film Independent.?YouTube?from Film Independent. September 28, 2020. youtube.com/watch?v=cBltKvlUkd4
?
Fausset, Richard. Monterrey emerging from shadow of drug violence. Los Angeles Times. 2013. https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mexico-monterrey-20131023-story.html
?
George, Cassidy. Cholombianos: Capturing the Slicked Hairstyles of Mexico’s Dying Subculture. 4 July 2019. https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/article/44708/1/cholombianos-slicked-hairstyles-mexico-subculture-stefan-ruiz#:~:text=The%20Cholombianos%20have%20a%20distinct,neighbourhoods%20and%20favourite%20radio%20stations
?
"Latinos and Cinema."?Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film.?Encyclopedia.com.?22 Feb. 2023?https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/latinos-and-cinema
?
Lopez, Yollotl. Not Your Average Immigration Story: “Ya No Estoy Aquí” & the Different Faces of Exile. The LatinX Project. https://www.latinxproject.nyu.edu/intervenxions/not-your-average-immigration-story-ya-no-estoy-aqui-and-the-different-faces-of-exile
?
New Study finds that popular movies continue to marginalize Hispanic/Latinos.?USC Annenberg. September 15, 2021.?https://annenberg.usc.edu/news/research-and-impact/new-study-finds-popular-movies-continue-marginalize-hispaniclatinos
?
Ortner, Sheery B. Against Hollywood: American Independent Films as a Critical Cultural Movement. Journal of Ethnographic Theory. Vol. 2 (Ed. 2). pp. 1-21.?https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.14318/hau2.2.002
?
Por qué Fernando Frías hizo Ya No Estoy Aquí. YouTube video from Netflix Latinoamérica. 2020. Video.?https://youtube.com/watch?v=bptE15mTcSc
The Chicano Civil Rights Movement. Library of Congress.?https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197398/
?
Williams, Linda. Type and Stereotype: Chicano Images In Film. Journal of Women Studies. University of Nebraska Press. 1980. Vol. 5, No. 2., pp. 14-17. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346029
Expert Strategist, Acclaimed Filmmaker, Award-Winning Executive Producer, and Cultural Curator
1 年This is exactly why I love indie storytelling. Thank you for sharing this!