Everyone Their Grain of Sand

Most of the U.S. immigrant-hopefuls who pour into Tijuana, Mexico end up working as cheap labor in the many multinational corporations that have sprung up in the area since the 1992 NAFTA agreement. As a result, urban sprawl has moved further and further east, threatening to engulf many small communities, including the 2,000 residents of Maclovio Rojas, which is the subject of Beth Bird's stirring documentary Everyone Their Grain of Sand. Seen here from the summer of 2001 through 2003, the spirited citizens of Maclovio Rojas—in a remarkable grassroots movement—organize to build their own schools and roads, and petition the government for water and electricity (unsuccessfully), and recognition of their school so their teachers can get paid (successfully). But it ultimately becomes clear through endless stonewalling and persecution that the government doesn't want to legitimatize the peoples' fight to gain title to their land: NAFTA marked the end of the region's tradition of collective communities, but it's Maclovio Rojas' specific focus on providing free land to low-income families—compared to its neighboring communities' examples of selling land to big businesses—that pits it squarely against the powers-that-be. The film profiles community leaders and citizens through footage of rallying efforts, public meetings, and projects, as well as in numerous interviews with residents as they face increasingly complicated and underhanded bureaucratic strategies fashioned by officials whose promises made during protests turn out to be empty (trumped up charges of stealing water are brought against three of the community leaders—one is jailed, while the others go into hiding). An engrossing film about the sometimes devastating human cost of economic globalization, this is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (A. Cantú)