Immigration a dream that may turn into a nightmare

Paraiso Travel

In Colombia and in general in South America there is dream to immigrate to the United States and follow the “American Dream” but the sacrifices and risks to get there are not worthy all the time, because the life conditions are not as expected and more considering the illegality.

And that’s exactly what the Colombian Movie Paraiso Travel tries to portrait. It tells the story of a boy and a girl who immigrate illegally to the States and then go separate ways until the boy finds the girl again.

At home the girl has dreams to go to the States and she dreams of New York, the snow… she has illusions but those are on stereotypes and a given idea that is not so close to reality.

Those dreams pressure the girl to do bad things as stealing money, and pressure the boy to fallow her dreams leaving his family and stability behind.

And the fact of doing it illegal also pushes them to undertake high costs and live under lots of risks, because just the trip to get to the states represents deaths, robbery, bad sleeping and eating conditions and abuses from other people.

It makes you think on the confrontation between right and wrong, and how people fallowing some ideas may not have a cold head to define what’s that they should really do.

Additionally, after leaving the comfort from home, letting down the family and escaping, and suffering all the things such an illegal trip represents, once they get to the States things don’t get better. It is all the opposite, they are in a place where they don’t know how basic things as the telephone work, they don’t speak the language and they don’t consider new things as the weather coming in winter something new for them and for the one they are not ready.

There are new places, a city of a new magnitude, different surroundings… and going from a City as Medellin to one as New York is changing actually from a town to world.

Immigrants and more if they are immigrants have to live under bad conditions, in horrible households, sometimes without money to get a piece of bread and being force to take the works that are like for the “outcasts” cleaning bathrooms, carrying heavy things…

But luckily for some of them they found the support in the community, sometimes from people from the same country or other with certain cultural similitude. Like that and finally counting with a support and encouragement people are able to learn from the others’ experiences and improve their life quality. Even gaining money not only to have a stable life (shelter and food) there but being able to send a remittance to the family at home, which is one of the greatest feelings immigrants may feel.

And once they realize that they are also advised to become legal, pay taxes and get in the system… because there is definitely a huge difference between being legal and do things right, especially when being illegal means run and hide from the police, and live in subhuman conditions.

Like that the reflections start pumping and there are two that catch more my attention. One is how scare the boy lives and how he struggles in his new life and talking with another immigrant who seems to be established and living smoothly he asks when will the pain and fair be gone, and he tells him that as an immigrant you will always feel two thing uncertainty and fear, and that those are not the ones to leave behind. And the second one is how they start valuing their past lives, saying that he might not have been reach at home, but that he was not as poor as he got there.

Another aspect of the movie is how people stay attached to it cultural roots, and they kind of stay in a community circle of what is known for them, and don’t get to involved in the culture of their new country.

Finally, I like the fact of a boy persisting and learning and growing in a new world for him. And how with the help of other he was able to start from cero and survive.

Note: Paraiso Travel is a movie by Simon Brand, made in 2008.