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 SALVADORANS
FALL INTO TRAPS SET BY SOCIAL WORKERS IN EAST OF HOPE STREET
As the film begins, we are informed that 73,000
persons are under the care of Child and Family Services, a
County of Los Angeles agency. As the film proceeds, we see
some of the 73,000 as well as a few social workers who coordinate
the care. The film focuses on three years in the life of Alicia
Montalvo (played by Jade Herrera), a Salvadoran refugee. Although
film credits say that the story is fictional, a publicity
blurb indicates that the film is based on a true story. When
the film begins, Alicia is in El Salvador, where sleep is
interrupted by gunfire due to the ongoing civil war. Orphaned
by the war, Alicia's aunt brings fifteen-year-old Alicia to
Los Angeles with her eight-year-old brother as refugees. Alicia
attends school and works in a sweatshop, where payment for
work is irregular. When school officials see repeated marks
on Alicia's body, they infer that she is a victim of child
abuse and notify the social welfare agency. Since police suspect
her aunt of possessing crack, a social worker and a police
officer suddenly show up at Alicia's home to remove her without
a warrant or visible legal process. Alicia and her brother
then go to the welfare office. As the social worker made no
advance arrangements for foster care, she next telephones
to locate a foster home for both, but brother and sister are
split up, going to two different homes. Despite promises from
the social worker that the siblings can see each other, they
are kept apart. Upon arriving at the foster home, Alicia's
foster mother tells her about rules of conduct, but her other
foster child encourages her to "have fun" by going to a party
instead, even though this means violating the foster parents's
curfew rule. Alicia then meets a Latino boyfriend and falls
in love; she then stops going to school and continues violating
curfew to develop a relationship with her boyfriend. One night,
however, her foster father discovers that she is violating
curfew and, threatening to send her to juvenile hall, rapes
her. One night, while Alicia and her boyfriend and another
couple are driving around, police stop the car, which is stolen,
and all are arrested. While being processed at the jail, medical
tests reveal that she is pregnant.
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During
arraignment on the charge of grand theft, the judge orders
Alicia to a house for pregnant teens, and she is shipped to
Houston House on Boyle Heights (east of Hope Street) , administered
by a Caucasian female who is more interested in her personal
appearance and in payoffs to contractors than in quality of
care issues, though she is later fired after a routine investigation.
After a scuffle with a disagreeable Caucasian roommate, she
is reassigned to share a room with another Latina, and both
decide to have their babies. The two go shopping one day on
Hope Street and try to hitchhike back before curfew, but the
men who offer a ride home have rape in mind, her friend is
killed, and Alicia luckily escapes but is hospitalized. Fortunately,
Alicia is guided by Casey, a sympathetic African American
coordinator (played by Tim Russ), at Houston House; she graduates
from high school with employable computer skills, has her
baby, and expects to move into an apartment of her own with
her younger brother. However, her former Caucasian roommate
reports her to immigration authorities, and she is led to
a detention cell until a deportation hearing. At the hearing,
she makes an impassioned plea and is awarded a green card.
Directed by Tim Russ and Nate Thomas, who also wrote the script,
the film's title is reminiscent of East of Eden
(1955), a classic tale of despair ending in hope. As a window
into the misfortunes of Salvadorans, who have many of the
same problems as Vietnamese refugees, and into the way social
workers wield extraordinary power over minors with little
accountability, East of Hope Street has been
nominated by the Political Film Society for an award as the
best film exposé of 1999 and the best film promoting consciousness
of the need for greater democracy. MH
NOMINEES
FOR 1999
DEMOCRACY:
East
of Hope Street, Fight
Club, The
Insider,
Naturally
Native, Three
Kings
EXPOSÉ: Bastards, Cabaret
Balkan, East of Hope Street,
The Insider,
Naturally Native, One
Man's Hero, Three
Kings, Three
Seasons
HUMAN RIGHTS:
The
General's Daughter, Hard,
Naturally
Native, One
Man's Hero, Three
Kings, Three
Seasons, Xiu Xiu
PEACE: Cabaret
Balkan, Earth, One
Man's Hero, Three
Kings, West Beirut
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