Latinx Borders: Documentary Film

Welcome to season NINE of Latinx Visions. This season the “hilo” connecting our episodes will be The Border (or Borders, plural).  We’re centering Latinx voices—artists, researchers, storytellers—who are offering counter-narratives. Perspectives that resist the flat, racist tropes dominating headlines. We’ll highlight works that humanize migrants, that complicate the story, that insist on dignity over dehumanization.

Above all, our goal this season is to remind listeners that the border is not a “problem” to be solved. It’s a human reality to be reckoned with, one shaped by histories of colonialism and one still infused with possibility—stories of survival, resistance, and creativity that deserve to be heard.

In our first episode, we provide you with some background information on the film Who’s Dayani Cristal?  including who made it, what the goal of the film is, and how it approaches telling the story of one man who can no longer speak for himself. 

Then we dive into our main topics: Rojo starts off by exploring the parallels between the film and Francisco Cantú’s memoir The Line Becomes a River and Rebecca discusses whose story gets told and how it gets told. In our connections segment, Rojo considers the music in the film and Rebecca talks about other migration narratives and how they approach telling these border stories.

In this episode we mentioned a number of books, songs, and videos. If you're interested in learning more check out any of the sources listed below:

 Books

• The Line Becomes a River, Francisco Cantú  
• A People’s History of Latin America, Hernan Horna
• Solito, Javier Zamora
• Unaccompanied, by Javier Zamora
• The Devil’s Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea
• Harvest of Empire, by Juan Gonzalez (also a documentary film)

Songs

• Calle 13’s “Latinoamérica
• Yasiin Bey—Mos Def—with “No hay nada más
• Leonard Cohen’s “The Partisan"

Videos on YouTube

• “Who Is Dayani Cristal?: Gael Garcia Bernal Traces Path of Migrant Worker Who Died in Arizona Desert,” - Democracy Now
• “Gael Garcia Bernal on 'Who is Dayani Cristal?': Sundance Film Festival” - Los Angeles Times

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Follow the podcast:

Bluesky and Instagram: @LatinxVisions

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Hosts: Rojo Robles and Rebecca L. Salois

Logo Design: Marcos Toledo

Music: Shawn P. Russell

Sound Consultant and Mixing: Shawn P. Russell

Recording and Editing: Rebecca L. Salois