A Day Without a Mexican

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Since I grew up and spent most of my life there, I am well aware of the Hispanic heritage that permeates California. City names (Sacramento, Los Angeles, Santa Ana), street names (Sepulveda, Figueroa), names of mountains (the Sierra Nevada range) all remind us that this land once was a part of Mexico. And yet, the burgeoning presence of Latinos in our culture is disturbing to some. There are Latinos whose families have lived in California for generations and then there are Latinos who have crossed the border only recently. But this is true as well for other border states: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona. It is becoming increasingly true throughout the country as well.

It is cultural elitism and an anti-cultural bias that feed much of the animosity directed toward the immigrants themselves and those perceived as immigrants because of their heritage. Actually, much of the economy of California (and other places) involves Latinos -- not just as low wage workers (those who pick the fruit, mow the lawns, work as day laborers), but also as teachers, doctors, politicians, judges and every other occupation.

In A Day Without a Mexican, Sergio Arau tries to provide a satirical look at what would happen if suddenly all the Mexicans were gone. (“Mexican� here includes other Latin Americans, because for Anglos, aren't they all Mexicans?) A woman wakes up with her husband and son gone. The TV station's weather man is gone. There are no workers in the fields, the schools are in crisis because twenty percent of K-12 teachers are Latino.

An anti-immigration state senator becomes acting governor and has to deal with the chaos that ensues from all the missing people. Can he get the Hispanics back? Can his family manage without their Latina housekeeper?

A Latina newscaster is the only Hispanic left in the entire state. Why is she still here? Can science find a clue in her to keep other ethnic groups from disappearing?

Will the film really give us something to think about? It should have. But it doesn't. The best it does is give us a few statistics, scattered throughout the film, noting the extensiveness of Latinos in California. It doesn't really speak to the key issues about the place of such a large ethnic group in a larger society. It only touches on, and poorly, the bias against Hispanics. It barely touches on immigration policy.

It also limits its ability to address such issues. California is completely isolated from the rest of the nation by a thick purple fog that surrounds the state at every border. No one can come in or leave. No communications are available with the rest of the world. Such a disappearance in reality would not have had merely statewide, but also national repercussions. But those issues also cannot be engaged.

Satire ought to be a challenging look at society, but there is no real challenge here for anyone who has paid the least amount of attention to demographics. Many communities now have Hispanic pluralities or majorities. Hispanic culture is seen in every aspect of life. Just telling us that Hispanics are a key part of our society is not news.

On top of that, the film itself isn't really all that impressive. The characters are too cartoonish to be at all believable. At first, the film tries to be a mockumentary, but then it trails off into narrative plot lines and never really makes up its mind what it wants to be. Even the humor is not all that funny.

In the end, A Day Without a Mexican missed its opportunity to add anything significant to the discussion of how different cultures can live together in a diverse society.