Ryan ChartrandThe war on Iraq is good. No, the war on Iraq is bad (it’s worse than the butter is bad/butter is good debate). Honestly, I’ve probably changed my opinion about the United States’ military strong-arming of Iraq more than Hillary Clinton. But after viewing the short film “Una Causa Noble” at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival this weekend, I may have finally found my official position regarding the war that keeps on taking.
The film takes place in Mexico and opens with a man’s return to his family after toiling in America to financially support them. Because he (Ignacio) and his family aren’t legal citizens of the U.S., he must spend most of his time away from them. Though he is able to better provide for his family with his earnings, his wife and child are hardly better off without him.
But when Ignacio comes home, he tells his wife he has found a solution to their troubles: There is a way to get documentation for he and his family, but of course, there are strings attached. In exchange for papeles, Ignacio would have to spend a year in the U.S. Army. He would probably get sent to some stateside location and do a few push-ups, and then his wife and son could be reunited with him.
Ignacio and his wife (reluctantly) decide to go through with the exchange so their son can have a better life. However, Ignacio gets sent to Iraq and ends up getting killed, leaving his wife and child with nothing except the shadow of Ignacio’s dream.
Although the story seems hyperbolic and dramatic, it is unfortunately a reality for many Mexicans who have made the same deal with the devil. Univision staff member Julio Mora said via e-mail (I met him personally before the screening) that the film “depicts the reality that to become an American citizen there are two routes for Hispanics: 1: go through the system legally, which takes roughly five years, or 2: go to war for the U.S. and be killed (where your immediate family becomes automatic citizens in 24 hours). Director Miles Merritt does a stunning job in this short film to show that there is a greater price to pay and it begins with people’s lives.”
Other than the U.S., U.K. and Iraq, Mexico has suffered the most casualties while serving in Iraq – a pretty high price to pay for a country politically uninvolved in the conflict. In order to enlist more military support, George W. Bush passed a referendum that stipulated the citizenship of Hispanic immigrants contingent upon their service in the U.S. Army.
While no one is forcing these people to fight for a cause that isn’t their own, the U.S. takes advantage of the fact that so many are desperate for U.S. citizenship that they are willing to go to their graves to get it. Perhaps I have been watching too much E! and not enough CNN, but I had not considered the war’s detrimental impact on nations that do not support it. Yes, the war was supposed to be a means to an end, but what is it doing now that there is no end in sight? Perhaps for us the war is a “noble” cause, but it comes with a high price in the form of money, time and human lives.
Allison Baker is an English senior, Mustang Daily columnist and pop-culture enthusiast.