Balseros is a 2002 documentary film by Carlos Bosch and Josep Maria Domènech about the journeys of seven Cuban refugees to America. Due to political policies, emigrating legally is practically impossible for many Cubans. Instead, Cubans build rafts out of whatever materials they can acquire, including their own houses, and they set afloat across the Caribbean to Florida. Some survive, some do not, and the experiences of those who do succeed in reaching America are uniquely different. This candid documentary gives the world a real and personal look at the experiences of the balseros.“Balseros” is a Spanish word meaning “rafters,” and specifically applies to Cuban rafters escaping to America. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba fell into such extreme poverty that a great number of its citizens illegally left the country in hopes of a better life.
The film begins in Cuba, where we are introduced to the seven balseros and their families: Juan Carlos and Misclaida are one couple; Misclaida’s sister Mericys; Oscar, who leaves his wife and daughter behind to find a better life; Guillermo, whose wife and daughter are already in the US; Miriam, who leaves behind her daughter; and Rafael, who is independent and wants “a car, a house, and a good woman.” In Cuba, the balseros are struggling to find enough materials to build their small rafts. The materials are expensive, and money is limited. One, Mericys, even submits to prostitution to earn the money for the supplies. Her raft fails and she is forced to stay Cuba for seven years.
In 1994, President Clinton announced that the balseros would be taken to Guantanamo, a US naval base located in Cuba. This is just what happened to the six. They were eventually found by the US and held at Guantanamo with thousands of other balseros. The immigrants there are then interviewed and many are granted visas into the US. Many however, must remain in Guantanamo for years until they are let into the United States. Luckily the six characters receive their visas and meet with a church organization that sends them to particular cities and provides them with a house.
It seems that many of the balseros did not have the experience of living in America that they were expecting to have. Juan Carlos and Misclaida split up after Misclaida had an affair. Juan Carlos went to live with a friend of his, while Misclaida moved to Albuquerque, NM to sell drugs. Mericys wins a government sponsored visa, where she and her daughter are admitted to the United States. They stay with Misclaida in Albuquerque despite Mericys concern about her sister’s actions. Miriam, who had another child in America, must wait years to bring her first daughter to the US from Cuba because she incorrectly filled out the necessary forms. Rafael has no contact with his family when he reaches America, and for many years, nobody knows where he is. Finally, he is found in San Antonio, TX, where he had become a passionate Christian preacher at a church. Oscar struggles quite a bit in the US. He moves from city to city, woman to woman, job to job, and eventually ends up in Pennsylvania after a great deal of personal and legal trouble. Guillermo is reunited with his family in Miami for the only happy ending of seven.
What exactly happened to these young, determined refugees is hard to say. It almost seems as if they went from good to bad. Most of them neglected their families back in Cuba and a handful of them adopted unsavory characteristics by becoming criminals, drug addicts, prostitutes, and gangsters. Those who did not fall into crime became either materialistic consumers, or suffered scarring emotional problems. It seems that the balseros expected to find in the United States an easy life. However, they found that without the proper education, skills, and work ethic, living in the US is not a piece of cake. Most importantly, their internal personalities were the primary factors in their undoing once they arrived.
Without a doubt, the reason for the dismal endings of most of the characters’ stories is as complex as the characters themselves. Their beliefs, motivations, relationships, and personal qualities all played a role in the outcome of the story.
Balseros, an Academy Award nominee for best documentary, is an excellent film. Bosch and Domènech did a tasteful job of addressing the different personal and emotional aspects of the balseros, while maintaining cohesion within the film. An example of this is the recurring singing of Lucrecia, a Cuban singer who provided the music for Balseros. Many times throughout the film, she would sing the same certain lyric in order to emphasize a connection within the film. For instance, Rafael stated that he wished for “un carro, una casa, y una buena mujer,” (a car, a house, and a good woman). This became something of a mantra for him and summed up his goals for his new life. So every time Lucrecia sang the motif “un carro, una casa, y una buena mujer,” it was an auditory representation of that ongoing mantra which compelled the balseros to risk their lives and leave their homes behind.
I was impressed by Balseros. Though the ending was not what I had expected or hoped it would be, I learned a lot about the political aspect of illegal immigration from the movie. Since illegal immigration is a growing issue in the United States, it is wise to educate American citizens about the controversial topic so that informed, unbiased decisions can be reached. Bosch and Domènech chose to further narrow the focus of Balseros to the human aspect of immigration, which I see as extremely important because it gives the public a more personal outlook on the realities of illegal immigration. This too, will contribute to a better educated and more open-minded population.
However, I see another important goal of Balseros, and that is to make a statement about the facts of human nature. Instead of being fed an idealized and unrealistic story about illegal immigrants and their lives upon reaching their destinations, the honest movie allows the audience to watch the blanket unravel. But rather than be angry or disgusted when it does, the filmmakers leave the film without judgment and with a touch of empathy for humankind. The realization emerges that we are all human beings, bounded by our physical capacities, intellectual aptitudes, and emotional stirrings. It is human nature to act in self interest and we all fall at times, as well as rise up. This suggests that empathy and a nonjudgmental eye are the some of the most generous gifts that humans have to offer to each other.
