Department of History

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the US, with the dream of starting a new life. It's a story that happens every day, but until Gregory Nava's groundbreaking El Norte, the personal travails of immigrants crossing the border to America had never been shown in the movies with such great urgent humanism. A work of social realism imbued with dreamlike imagery, El Norte is a lovingly rendered, heartbreaking story of hope and survival, which critic Roger Ebert called "a Grapes of Wrath for our time."