The New Face of the American Class Struggle
Weekend Edition April 3-5, 2015
Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick's "The Hand That Feeds"
The New Face of the American Class Struggle
by LOUIS PROYECT
A 1954 film titled “Salt of the Earth” told the story of a courageous strike by the mostly Mexican-American zinc miners against a ruthless corporation that was based on a 1951 strike in New Mexico. Produced by Paul Jarrico and directed by Herbert Biberman, two Hollywood blacklistees, it was remarkable for both its power as film and for its fearless radicalism in a time when the left was being hounded out of existence. It derived much of its strength from the casting of New Mexican miners in leading roles, such as Juan Chacon, the president of a miner’s union, as a strike leader. And of critical importance in a time when reaction was running full throttle, the film depicted a victory of workers against insurmountable odds, just as had taken place in 1951.
I could not help but think about the 1954 classic when watching a screening of “The Hand that Feeds”, a documentary that opens today at Cinema Village in New York. If “Salt of the Earth” was a fictional film based on the facts of a real life strike, “The Hand that Feeds” is by contrast a factual film with all of the heartrending drama of a fictional film blessed with a “star” who led a struggle of twenty workers at Hot and Crusty, a bagel shop that was a stone’s throw from Bloomingdales in New York. In a panel on storytelling I chaired at this year’s Socially Relevant Film Festival, a documentary filmmaker explained that casting is as important for the documentary as it is for narrative films. One cannot imagine better casting for this documentary than the mostly undocumented Mexican workforce at Hot and Crusty, starting with Mahoma López, the 2014 counterpart to the Juan Chacon of sixty years ago.
At the very beginning of the film Mahoma López is heard saying: “Immigrants make this city run. You get settled in, and see the reality of how dollars are earned. I’m not so into being the victim. We basically started a war.”
If you live in New York, you will very likely be familiar with someone like Mahoma López who you will run into behind the counter when you are picking up a bagel in the morning on your way to work. There will be small talk about the weather and a smile from him but that is about the extent of it. “The Hand that Feeds” puts you on the other side of the counter as you learn the realities of life for such workers. They work sixty hours a week but without any sick or vacation pay. They lack health insurance. They can be fired at the drop of a hat if they have an “attitude”. The boss can get away with this because the worker is afraid of being reported to la migra and because he or she has family members in New York or Mexico who face certain disaster if the breadwinner loses a job. In many ways, it is just a small step above slavery.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/03/the-new-face-of-the-american-class-struggle/
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