You could be forgiven for thinking the Macarena isn’t exactly the cornerstone of cultural
assimilation, but for teens at New York City’s International High School at Lafayette,
the dance is indicative of the essence of American culture.
In
I Learn America, filmmakers
Gitte Peng and
Jean-Michel Dissard follow a group of adolescent immigrants through high school, as they grapple with
everything from civics homework to soccer practice to self-discovery. But the film’s
main focus is how the students experience their introduction to a new society’s norms.
In interview after interview, they recount personal anecdotes and struggles to the
point where the movie starts to resemble an episode of MTV’s
True Life.
It’s evident that the filmmakers are attempting to understand and explain why these
students’ families either brought them to the US or sent them stateside to live with
relatives, but the narrative lacks cohesion. Though scenes showing students struggling
to assimilate into American culture while attempting to retain ties to their homelands
are valid, the way in which the film chooses to portray their stories often undermines
the complexity of the situations, coming across to the audience as simple juvenile
angst.
One issue that could have been explored with more depth is the correlation between
expulsion and deportation; there are scenes that depict both, but
I Learn America fails to solidly show the links between them. Still, the film’s message of how difficult
it is to juggle ties to two cultures while simultaneously navigating the pitfalls
of adolescence offers a new and often-ignored perspective to the thorny immigration
debate.
Playing June 22, noon, at the National Portrait Gallery and June 23, 11:30 AM, at
the National Museum of American History.
