"No Human Being is Illegal"

Last week in class we watched “Immigration,” an episode of the series 30 Days. This is a reality television show produced by Morgan Spurlock, the man behind Super Size Me. Spurlock presents controversial issues to the public through the 30 Days series, and the episode we watched was about the issue of illegal immigration in the United States.

Frank George, an active member of the Minutemen and a legal Cuban immigrant, totally opposes illegal immigration. He believes, as many other people do, that the illegal immigrants are stealing jobs from legal Americans because they will work for much lower wages. He is placed in the home of the Gonzalez family, who are illegal immigrants from Mexico, for 30 days. The Gonzalez family includes Rigoberto (father and a day laborer), Paty (mother who collects and recycles cans to earn money for the children’s Christmas presents), and five children, two of whom are legal U.S. citizens. Throughout his time there he gets into heated discussions with Armida, the oldest daughter of the family, about the issue of illegal immigration. She tells Frank about how they’ve been able to achieve a better life in the U.S. as compared to the poverty-stricken life they had in Mexico. We see that Frank learns about this poor life when he visits Rigoberto’s family in Mexico. It is during this experience that Frank utters, “I can’t blame them for trying to seek a better life.” Could this be a major point of softening up for Frank?

At one point during the episode, Armida asks Frank if he will be her sponsor. He replies that he would be perfectly happy to sponsor her – if she returns to Mexico and comes back to the U.S. legally. I think one the ideas he grips on to the tightest is that is can be done legally, and he is proof of that. He reminds the Gonzalez family of that fact throughout the show. Abiding by laws is important to Frank, and he believes it should be important to all other people as well.

I believe 30 Days accomplishes its purpose – pushing people to see multiple perspectives of an issue and come up with their own conclusion – by allowing multiple sides of a story to be shown.
“If we cannot fully understand the acts of other people, until we know what they think they know, then in order to do justice we have to appraise not only the information which has been at their disposal, but the minds through which they have filtered it.” (Lippmann, chapter 6)
Spurlock introduces us to the immigration issue – he shows us what both perspectives think they know, what kind of information both perspectives have acquired through their experiences with the issue, and he shows us the discussions that pop up throughout the show between Frank and the Gonzalez family. He helps us toward understanding what the people are thinking and why they are thinking it so that we can create our own view on the issue.

I was surprised to find myself extremely interested in the show. Usually I’m not a fan of reality TV, but this was quite different from most “reality” shows. It covered a controversial topic that has been raging in America for a while. It’s a topic that sparks debate every day, and will probably continue to do so for a long time. It was informative for me and opened my eyes to an important topic in American politics. I would recommend this show to people because it’s an informative and interesting way to learn about controversial topics and stereotypes in the U.S. It doesn’t seem to present a biased opinion – it shows the topic as is, and you get to decide for yourself what to believe based on the content you see and decide to focus on.