After receiving an MA in International Relations at the University of Chicago, Roy Germano took up a research position at the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studies and surveys Mexican immigration. His fascination and passion for this subject led Germano to embark on a very personal journey that would culminate in his debut film, The Other Side of Immigration. LWLies sat down with Germano recently to gets the facts on his breakthrough documentary.
LWLies: What is The Other Side of Immigration?
Germano: It’s about the reasons why people in rural Mexico decide to migrate to the US. And in turn what they leave behind. The goal of the film is to take that information, and to use it to think of some more creative and effective approaches to managing Mexican migration to the US. The film came about while I was doing research for my PHD; I was running a survey in Mexico of 768 families, and I just happened to bring a camera along and I filmed some interviews and came back to the US and put it all together and started sending it off, and here it is today.
Coming from such an academic background, was the translation of that research hard to put into the film?
Right, yeah, that was a big challenge. I had to get comfortable with generalising more. You know, in a film it’s different. In a thesis you can talk for sixty pages about one idea and give all sorts of evidence. Whereas in a film, in this film, I felt like 60 minutes was the longest it could be so I really had to simplify some of the issues. So yeah, it was challenge.
Was there a particular stage that presented the biggest challenge?
The people were amazing and that’s what made the film possible. When I brought the camera down, the thought was that it would be great to make a film, but I had no idea if it would work out because I’d never done anything like this before. The people themselves made the process easier because they were so willing to open up to me. I guess the biggest overall challenge was the technical challenge. I had never directed or shot a film before so I had to learn all aspects of the process. I had no money so I couldn’t hire people.
You’re obviously not from a film background – you’re going to this rural area of Mexico and you’re trying to make a film that tries to understand and respect the issues and the struggle these people have to go through – how did they react to a film being made rather than research being conducted?
Interestingly, they were so much more open to the film than the research I was originally in Mexico to do. When we knocked on someone’s door with a clipboard in hand, they were suspicious – we were asking all kinds of personal information on a standardised form – we had to find ways to assure them that this was a university study and that the data was anonymous that we weren’t going to give it to the government. Whereas with the film, it was a bit more fluid; I would be in these towns with the camera and I would just ask people I met on the street if they had ever emigrated before, ‘Do you have any family members abroad?’ Some people would be shy, while some would say ‘Hi, let’s sit down.’ One day I was just driving in the countryside and saw one guy farming, so I rolled down the window and asked ‘Can you tell me about the pork industry in this town?’, and he said ‘Yeah, I can tell you.’ So I got out the car and set up the camera, we just stood there for an hour and a half in a field. It really surprised me how open people were.
How do you think that the projected images of Hollywood affect the flow of migration to America?
Well, it’s really hard to say. When TV becomes the standard in most homes, even the poor areas that witness a lot of migration have TVs in almost every home, these images are beamed in. Sometimes it’s not just the images of the US, it’s the image of the rich in Mexico City – strangely good looking people in nice clothes talking about celebrities. So, it is hard for me to pinpoint it, but I am sure it has an effect. But arguably an even bigger effect in these towns is the stories that return migrants come back with, and the nice clothing they come back with, and new music and new cars and trucks. Young kids see these symbols of wealth and success when their relatives come back from the US, and they in turn want to migrate and earn money too, and I am sure that desire is reinforced by images of Los Angeles and New York City they see in the movies.
When you were actually with these families in Mexico did you feel the need to step away from the director seat, or did you have to be restrained?
No, for me it is all integrated; the research, the film, and now a non-profit organization that I am in the process of starting to help people invest in poor Mexican communities. So, I mean, I think I am kind of a peculiar filmmaker in this respect. To me, film is a piece of the pie; one tool that can be used to raise awareness and get people interested in the issues and help improve situations like those of the people I met in Mexico.
Was this fascination and desire to cover the issues of immigration and community something that was homegrown from a young age? When did this interest start?
It wasn’t a part of my childhood at all. I grew up in Kentucky, and so I didn’t have much contact with these communities when I was growing up. It was only after I finished my MA and I needed money very quickly and took a job waiting tables, and you know, I remember on the first day of work going back into the kitchen and realising that the whole place was run mainly by undocumented immigrants, and I became very good friends with these guys and became very interested in their stories. So it was really later in life. And as I got more interested in this I felt like a sort of responsibility to provide information on this topic to people like me. Help people in the US understand why people from other countries come to work in our country, and let them know that a lot of immigrants would rather not be here, they would rather be at home, but they come here out of necessity, so they can send money home to their families.
Did you encounter many people who oppose this belief?
Yeah, I’ve encountered these types of people more since I have been showing the film. I think that the European debate is full of people who don’t understand or empathise with immigrants, who want to blame immigrants for stealing jobs. My whole goal is to demonstrate that any one of us would do the same thing if we were in that position. I gave an example at a screening; a woman raised her hand and said she felt sorry for the people in my film, but still believed that what they are doing is wrong because it is illegal. My response to this is, when you need to feed your children, another country’s visa laws don’t really matter as much, if the US economy was decimated and Canada was the only place where you could find relief or could feed your kids you wouldn’t think twice about migrating illegally to Canada. You would just move there and begin working.
Legally, how did you make it across the border to shoot the film?
Well, it is very easy for an American to cross into Mexico. You know, all you need is a tourist visa. And once I was down there, we were in these little towns, and I would meet with the mayor of each town and let him know that we were doing a survey there, and I interviewed most of the mayors so they knew what we were doing. But yeah, it’s very easy to cross into Mexico, it is just getting back into the US that takes a long time. And if you don’t have a visa, then a very, very long time.
The images of immigration and migration have spanned almost the entirety of the cinematic spectrum, but where do you see your film within that?
I made this film on little-to-no money and did everything myself, so everything that has happened so far has surprised me; like the fact that it has been picked up by certain festivals. I just finished a 22 city tour of universities and festivals, so every step of the way I am surprised. I don’t have firm expectations, I just want to show it to as many people as possible, and I hope that the right person sees it and says we wanna broadcast this.
What would you say to directors who choose to recreate or use the border or Mexico without actually touching base with the country or the communities?
I think that it is necessary to touch base. There are so many stereotypes that continue to be perpetuated because we often fail to take the time to talk to each other, to learn about each other. I think it is necessary to interact with and be respectful of the communities. Also in documentary films too, I think they call it the ‘pornography of poverty’, or something, there is this over-sensationalised image of poverty. You know, just for the shock value. We should be concentrating on the people who have really sophisticated things to say, and actually listening to them, not just observing how difficult their lives are.
You were not trained in filmmaking, but you are now a director. Do you have an urge to return to do similar commentary on these communities?
Yeah, I definitely want to do another film. And that’s why I am so glad I just dove in and did this one despite all the challenges. I am happy with this film but of course I would do a million things differently if I had a budget and had a crew and had the experience that I have now. So, although I am happy with it, I am excited for the next one. I would probably consider making another film on this issue, because it’s so dear to me, and there is so much more work to be done. Not just immigration, also economic development, and the development of democracy in poor countries. Yeah, I am hoping to cover other stories that have a cloud of misunderstanding around them. I am very excited, but to add one more thing, I am so glad that I was put in the position of having no money and no crew because I learned how to do so many things and I know how difficult everybody’s job is on a film. Next time, if I have a crew working with me, I will have such a high level of respect for every aspect of the process because I know myself how difficult it is.
The Other Side of Immigration will be screened in Limerick April 22 and Dublin April 23.
Roy Germano (text) by Jamie Isbell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
