Documenting Immigration: Which Way Home

The UNDP Human Development Report 2009 focuses on immigration. For many people around the world moving away from their home town or village can be the best—sometimes the only— option open to improve their life chances, it says, arguing that restrictions within and across borders need to be reduced to “expand human choices and freedoms”.

Which Way Home, a documentary released early this year and aired by HBO, "chronicles the journey of several children (most from Central America) riding the "Beast," a Mexican train that runs north of the border with Guatemala. Many people looking to enter the US illegally will board the train (riding on top, many fall off and are crushed to death) to make the treacherous and often deadly trip. The children are from 9 to 17 years old and are either looking to reunite with family in the US, or seeking a better life away from extreme poverty in their home countries. During their trip, the kids witness two people falling off the train and getting crushed, they are robbed, caught by immigration authorities in Mexico and deported back home, and one witnesses two women being repeatedly raped in a boxcar."

[This documentary is currently available on More 4]

An older Spanish-language film, El Norte, had explored this theme of a teenage brother and sister moving away from dangerous Guatemala, after the army came calling to their village, and heading to the North, the United States. [Available at Amazon]