A LOMOS DE LA BESTIA - DOCUMENTARY

1. Summarize in a few lines the documentary.

This documentary talks about the illegal migration of people riding the dangerous and treacherous train called “La Bestia”. This train helps every day hundred of Central Americans to cross Mexico, trying to reach the United States boundaries, trying to settle there, to improve their living conditions. Only few of them achieve their wishing goal, because it is a very dangerous and long trip, in which humanity does not exist. Illegal immigrants face kidnapping, murder and rape by the hands of violent drug cartels and ever more ruthless human smugglers. Crossing treacherous desert areas makes the travelers to expose to heat exhaustion and dehydration. The documentary shows us the awful conditions in which this people are trying to survive, running away of their countries, leaving there their belongings and families, wishing they would have a chance of recovering their freedom and get some money, without paying attention to the possibility of dying along the trip. Through touching and impressive images, this documentary shows us the feeling of helplessness and vulnerability in which immigrants are exposed to.


2. Why is the train called the Beast?

This train is called “The Beast” because it destroyes immigrants' dreams and goals in its dangerous route from Mexico to U.S.A boundaries. People usually fall down of the carriages, being mutilated because of the speed of the train. Criminal acts committed against illegal immigrants include kidnapping, robbery, extortion, sexual violence, and death at the hands of cartels, smugglers, and even corrupt Mexican government officials and “collotes” or “polleros”. Many also were reported being deprived of food, or even beaten, tied, gagged, blindfolded, drugged, or burned. There is an obvious lack of humanity and, as a consequence, people call this train "la bestia". Immigrants life´s testimony shows us that the name of this train describes the treacherous travel they follow, looking for the American dream.


3. What countries are the immigrants from? Where do they go?


Immigrants that rides the Beast are mainly from Central and South America. All of them are looking for a better life, The American Dream. The majority comes from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico. There are also alternative routes by the sea that are principally used by people fom Cuba, Haití and the Dominican Republic. Mexico serves as a starting point as well as a path of transit for people across Latin America seeking illegal entry into the United States. These individuals travel from their homeland throughout the region to Mexico’s shared border with Guatemala and Belize and then they go across other regions to their finish line, U.S.A.

4. What is the academic professional experience of the immigrants?


When Sistiaga board on the train, he met Marvin, Edgar, Miguel and Juan Carlos, his traveling partners. Marvin López is a Honduran carpenter, and the first immigrant that Jon interviewed. The second one was Edgar Vázquez, a Salvadoran who wanted to settle in Chicago. When Sistiaga stopped in “Jesús el buen Pastor” shelter, a hostel for people who had being mutilated by the train, he met Miguel Távora; he was also a Honduran immigrant from San Pedro Sula, one of the most violent cities of the world. He was trying to cross U.S.A border to reach Los Ángeles to work as an electrician and keep playing football. He met there also Marizza, who wanted to work as a house servant to send money back to her family to pay the education of her child and Fredy González who wanted to settle also there and work as a painter; both came from Honduras. In another stop, in Arriaga, Oaxaca, he interviewed Byron Campos, a Salvadoran immigrant who wanted to work as an air conditioner technician. There he also met Morena Alfaro, another Salvadoran girl who explained the lacks of respect and the agressions that women suffer in this travel. She told us that she prostituted herself to move forward from Vera Cruz to Tierra Blanca. She did not do it for money, she only wanted to survive and continue the trip, and it was the only thing she could do. When Jon said goodbye to his traveling partners, he talked us about one of them, Miguel Guerra, an Honduran draftsman whose only wish was to be useful for society. When he stopped in Medias Aguas, in Vera Cruz, he went to Santillos hostel, where he met Dimas Ernesto, an Honduran immigrant who wanted to cross the border and have the chance to settle and work there as a welder and also Rubén Avilés, another Honduran man who only wanted to pass to the U.S.A. As a conclusion, we can say that almost all the migrants who crossed the border with Sistiaga had studied and wanted to settle and also work, so that would had some benefits to the immigration country, not only economic, also social and cultural. Regarding to economy, we can discuss about the arrival of immigrants, affirming that work and consumption would increased. They also would have to pay taxes and they probably become a labour force. In another hand, talking about social effects, we would say that population and natality would increase and if this immigrants have academic or professional qualifications from their country they would work as native people, and ending, as a cultural positive effect, we would said that immigrants often bring to the immigration country languages, traditions, values and cultures that are different to natives ones, so as a consequence, they create diversity.


5. What dangers do immigrants face during the journey?

Trying to immigrate illegally comes with tremendous risks, including kidnapping, extortion, injury, and death. Immigrants, especially woman and unaccompanied children, are too vulnerable and prone to get danger in this risky travel but they face the dangers and cruelty of this daily hell with courage and hope. All irregular migrants are at risk of abuse; they face serious risks of trafficking and sexual assault by criminals, other migrants and corrupt public officials. Very few of this abuses are condemned. Smugglers, that often ease the means of travel, are known to leave behind people who fail to keep up with the group due to exhaustion, injury, dehydration or simply their age. Furthermore, immigrants seeking to cross the southern border illegally increasingly do so in desert regions where the extreme heat can lead to over-exhaustion and death. Those left behind often lack of food and water, and face little chance of survival. Illegal immigrants may also be packed into trucks, hidden under seats, or smuggled in trunks to avoid detection. There they risk death and injury from suffocation or overturned vehicles. As we can deduce, the dangers in their day by day are countless, and, as a consequence of this journey, lots of them die.


6. What type of migratory routes are described in the documentary?




One of the world's busiest migrant corridors runs from Central America through Mexico.
For decades, migrants from the northern triangle of that region (Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala) have fled countries plagued by endemic levels of violence and crime in the hopes of crossing the Mexican border and eventually seeking asylum in the United States, looking for the American Dream. The route that the documentary describes is the Central American Route, that goes across Panamá, Guatemala, México and finally the arriving to the United states. Many immigrants have took the treacherous north journey along smuggling routes, increasingly controlled by drug cartels, towards the U.S. border.

7. Explain the consequences of migrations for both the countries that send the emigrants away and the countries that receive immigrants?

Talking about countries that receive immigrants, we can analyse it in two ways. First we can talk about the economy; we can say that the arrival of immigrants benefits the economical increasing of the country and provide labourforce to make those works that people who are living there, do not wanted to make and they also have to pay taxes and also consume.
The work of immigrants becomes a condition of economic growth, which will also be increasingly necessary due to the progressive aging of the population. Foreigners are blamed for economic problems, people have a wrong view of their impact on the economy. But I think that this is not the main problem, Undern my viewpoint, immigration is a challenge for cohabitation, social connection and increased of diversity and, overall, it increases natality, a very big problem in our society. As a conclusion, immigration is a very important factor in the development of the world and the war against poverty.
In the other hand, regarding to countries that send immigrants, countries of origin, social and political conflict could be reduced when a significant percentage of the productive population decides to emigrate. Thus, the levels of unemployment and discontent would decrease, since apparent possibilities would be created as a result of this movement of people towards other regions. Another possibility is that with the loss of the population, there is a decreasing in the possibilities of the economies whose development is based in its internal market. And as a conclusion of analysing emigration, the capacity for consumption of families can increase; as long as the migrant has been integrated into the receiving society, so that he is in a position to send his family a part of the money that he earns.

8. Give your personal opinion.

Hundreds of people die everyday because of immigration. In my personal opinion, citizens and countries leaders, do not want to interfere in this delicate theme and because of that, no one tries to improve their living conditions or even facilitate their dangerous travel to a better life, making them having psychological and physical damage. I think that immigration should be address with more sense, because all human should have the right to have a full life. I wish that in few years those poor countries that are being devastated because of wars and illnesses, could improve and become growing countries. As a final conclusion I would say that for me, immigration is a good supporting tool for globalization and to increase diversity.