Editing El Norte (film) (section)

==Plot==
The writing team of Nava and Thomas split the story into three parts:

=== ''Arturo Xuncax'' ===
The first part takes place in a small rural Guatemalan village called San Pedro and introduces the Xuncax family, a group of [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous]] [[Maya peoples|Maya]]ns. Arturo is a coffee picker and his wife a homemaker. Arturo explains his worldview to his son Enrique and how the ''indio'' fares in Guatemalan life, noting that, "to the rich, the peasant is just a pair of strong arms".<ref name="efilmcritic">[http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=4474 Review: ''El Norte''], efilmcritic.com, February 17, 2003. Accessed: July 27, 2013.</ref> Arturo and his family then discuss the possibility of going to the United States where "all the people, even the poor, have their own cars".

Because of his attempts to form a labor union among the workers, Arturo and the other organizers are attacked and murdered by government troops when a co-worker is bribed to betray them—Arturo's severed head is seen hanging from a tree.<ref name="popmatters">.[http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/norte/ Rathke, Renee Scolaro]. ''Pop Matters'', film review, "Same Old New World", undated. Accessed: April 21, 2007.</ref> When Enrique attempts to climb the tree that displays his father's head, a soldier attacks him. Enrique fights back and kills the attacker, then escapes with his sister Rosa and hides in a safe house until morning. Enrique and Rosa thus escape capture, only to learn that many of their fellow villagers have been rounded up by soldiers. The children's mother too "disappears": abducted by soldiers. So, using money given to them by their godmother, Enrique and Rosa decide to flee Guatemala, the land of their birth, and head north.

=== ''Coyote'' ===
During the second part of the film, the two teenagers flee Guatemala, travel through Mexico, and meet a Mexican [[Coyotaje|coyote]] who guides them across the border. This section includes various comic scenes relating to mutual stereotyping among different ethnic groups; the two attempt to pass themselves off as indigenous Mexicans, failing to convince one Mexican truck driver after naming the wrong destination, but later succeeding in convincing a U.S. Border Patrol officer by copiously peppering their responses with the Mexican word for "fuck", which a neighbor had suggested was how all Mexicans speak.<ref name="popmatters" />

Thus, Enrique and Rosa are only deported to a border town in Mexico and not to Guatemala, giving them a base for a second attempt to cross the border. After their first failed attempt to cross the ''"frontera"'', in which a man posing as a coyote deceives and attempts to rob them, they have a horrific experience when they finally cross the U.S.-Mexico border through a sewer pipe laden with rats; critic Roger Ebert noted:

{{blockquote|The scene is horrifying, not least because it's pretty clear these are real rats. Disease-free rats purchased from a laboratory, yes, but real rats all the same, and although Gutierrez was phobic about rats, she insisted on doing her own scenes, and her panic is real.<ref name="ebert2004">[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-el-norte-1983 Ebert, Roger]. Great Movies: ''El Norte'', film review, August 1, 2004. Accessed: July 27, 2013.</ref>}}

=== ''El Norte'' ===
In the final part of the film, Rosa and Enrique discover the difficulties of living in the U.S. without official documentation. The brother and sister find work and a place to live and initially feel good about their decision. However, Rosa is nearly caught up in an immigration raid and must find a new job. Working as a domestic, she is puzzled when her Anglo employer shows her a washing machine. Enrique becomes a busboy and, as his English classes begin to improve his command of the language, is promoted to a position as a waiter's assistant. He is later approached by a businesswoman who has a better-paying job for him in Chicago as a foreman, which he initially declines; he too encounters problems when a jealous [[Chicano]] co-worker reports him to immigration, causing him to flee the restaurant and seek out the businesswoman.

When Enrique finally decides to take the position, Rosa becomes gravely ill with typhus contracted from the rat bites she received during their border crossing. When this happens, Enrique must make the tough decision of missing the flight to Chicago to be by her side, and thus loses the position. As Enrique sits by her bedside in the hospital, a dying Rosa laments that she will not live to enjoy the fruits of their harrowing journey to the U.S. Rosa sums up the film's major theme when she says to Enrique:

{{blockquote|In our own land, we have no home. They want to kill us....In Mexico, there is only poverty. We can't make a home there either. And here in the north, we aren't accepted. When will we find a home, Enrique? Maybe when we die, we'll find a home.}}

After Rosa dies, Enrique is shown once again waiting with the other day-labor hopefuls in a parking lot, offering his services to a man looking for "strong arms"; reviewer Renee Scolaro Rathke observes: "It is a bitter realization that Arturo's words about the poor being nothing but arms for the rich holds true even in El Norte."<ref name="popmatters" />

Although Enrique is temporarily employed once again, he is distracted by haunting daydreams about his sister's lost desires for a better life. The final shot in the film again shows a severed head hanging from a rope, which may be the same image used in Part I of the film; one critic has commented that a hanging, severed head is "a symbolic device used in some Latin films to signify that the character has committed suicide".<ref name="spotlight">[http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/pre2000/elnorte.html Brett Willis]. ''Christian Spotlight on the Movies'', film review, undated. Accessed: July 27, 2013.</ref>