Dona Berna had to show off how many shoes they had from when her husband was working in the US. So cheap she said. They bought all the sizes so that the kids can have them one after another. 
Summer day in the colonia. not much happening, kids running around, the radio calling all comrades to go and demonstrate at the main Zocalo (square) in Cuernavaca for better conditions in Colonias (I think) I went, put my name down, demonstrated for about 4 hrs at nite, nearly froze my feet off, Dona was happy, they had a foreigner on the list, entonces.
1
Olga and Freddy are nine-year-olds from Honduras who have entered the US illegally to find the girl’s relatives in faraway Minnesota. Ten-year-old José from El Salvador ends up in a Mexican detention center after his smuggler turns him adrift. Juan Carlos was born in Guatemala; in New York he hopes to locate his father, who abandoned him and his mother. Kevin is 14 years old and he already knows the ropes. He finds jobs from time to time, and his mother Lupe, who remained in Honduras, expects him to send her a little money. These and other children from Mexico and Central America endeavor to make it on their own in the United States across the Mexican border, having undergone a dangerous and lengthy train journey – most often via an infamous long-distance freight train nicknamed The Beast. Even in the worst moments they don’t lose the hope that in the USA they will find a better life: a beautiful and just existence befitting a Walt Disney fairy tale. Their fates often provide stories of hope and courage – but also disappointment, loneliness, and desperation.
source: International Film Festival Karlovy Vary, 2009
Los que se quedan),
Mexico, 2008, 96 min
What does it mean to live in a Mexican village where half of the population has left to find work? What do parents go through who haven’t seen their children in years, or brothers and sisters who grow up without their fathers? The issue of Mexican emigration to the USA is handled relatively often in feature and documentary films, but few moviemakers concentrate on those who merely watch as their relatives leave. Who records their melancholy memories and helpless sorrow, their positive expectations and fond dreaming? Half-finished houses and untilled fields bear silent witness to a reality permeated with an intense feeling of loss. With emphasis on the authenticity of the everyday, the film’s creators put together a mosaic of the emotions and opinions of eleven men, women, and children from various regions of Mexico. "Instead of embarking on an odyssey, we decided to tell the story of Penelope and her eternal wait,” comments codirector Carlos Hagerman.
source: International Film Festival Karlovy Vary, 2009
cemetery - each year, on the day of the death, relatives gather round the graves, repaint them, use them as bars and have a party. Colours depend on who died - child or adult, female, male.
Palenque (Bàak' in Modern Maya) was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the seventh century CE. After its decline it was absorbed into the jungle, but has been excavated and restored.
