This week I watched a movie called Alivio. The movie is spoken all in Spanish so I used English subtitles to understand what was being said and what was going on. This movie/documentary is based around three women; Bianca, Angles, and Lupita who live in Mexico. They tell their stories about the hardships of growing up and how they overcame those painful memories to have their own families and great jobs as nurses. Click here if you would like to check out Alivio on youtube.
All three of the women come from different regions of Mexico but still have similar stories and their cultures are alike also. You can really see how much these women have grown and overcome their tough childhoods by the way they treat their families and respect the jobs they have. They did not have the best childhood like a child should, these women had absent/abusive parents that caused a lot of pain to them. There was one part of the movie where it showed Luptia sitting around with her siblings. There was music, lots of food, and laughter. There are eight women and five males in her family and while watching that scene, you can really see how close that whole family is. As having a Spanish family, I can say that Spanish people are very family-oriented. We do everything together and believe that family is the most important thing in life. One cultural difference between these Spanish women and my own is the way that they were brought up. When they were children and they did something wrong or tattletale on someone, all the siblings got a beating. When I was growing this did not happen to me. I do see this as something in the Spanish culture only because many people I know, were never told they were going to get a beating when they did something wrong.
During the film, I also learned about their everyday life as adults. They work in hospitals as nurses, which was a hard job for them to get. It is not common for women to be the one working, they’re supposed to be at home cooking and taking care of the children. But these women are not like the rest. They fought hard to get where they are and being a nurse has changed their lives. When it comes to food, they go out onto the streets and buy their food from markets. There are no supermarkets they can drive to, all their food is there being sold by others in the community under tents. All the meats are sitting out on tables and are cut right there in front of them with only a knife. But, to them, this was their normal and they seemed to enjoy walking around from tent to tent to get what they needed for dinner that night. By the end of the film, I could really see what these women most valued in life. They do value their jobs as nurses, but most importantly they value their life in general and family. If they were not brought up the way they were or did not go through what they did, then they would not be the women they are today.
I recommended this movie to anyone who needs a little bit of encouragement in life. It was emotional but it was very inspiring!