With the title being a great play on the words of Bruce Springsteen's hit Born In
The USA, the humor of Cheech Marin's Born In East LA has in many ways become
more grimly ironical in the age of Trump. It could be grim for some even back in
1987.
Poor Cheech, by some bad luck he's caught in an INS raid on a sweatshop garment factory and happens to have no ID on him. He protests in vain to redneck INS officer Jan Michael Vincent that he was Born In East LA. No matter, he's put in the bus and carted back to Mexico. Where he has to survive not even speaking a word of Spanish, his family has been in America for that long.
But as we see Marin is a resourceful guy and he finds ways to survive.
In some situations this turns deadly serious when the woman who is short by a few dollars is thrown off his truck by the coyote smuggler. Marin gives up some of the money he's saved up with his hustling.
The finale with that "charge" is a classic.
You can bet that Born In East LA doesn't get White House showings these days.
Poor Cheech, by some bad luck he's caught in an INS raid on a sweatshop garment factory and happens to have no ID on him. He protests in vain to redneck INS officer Jan Michael Vincent that he was Born In East LA. No matter, he's put in the bus and carted back to Mexico. Where he has to survive not even speaking a word of Spanish, his family has been in America for that long.
But as we see Marin is a resourceful guy and he finds ways to survive.
In some situations this turns deadly serious when the woman who is short by a few dollars is thrown off his truck by the coyote smuggler. Marin gives up some of the money he's saved up with his hustling.
The finale with that "charge" is a classic.
You can bet that Born In East LA doesn't get White House showings these days.