Immigration and the war in Iraq are two of the major issues dominating the news today. To some people, these may seem like abstract notions.  We hear statistics about a war that is taking place thousands of miles from home.  We see faces on the news of strangers who are being killed or wounded in action.  But unless you know someone personally who is involved in this war, the chances are you haven’t been asked to make any kind of sacrifice.  The same is true of immigration.  We see pictures on TV of people climbing walls or fences and some of us falsely assume that they are all merely criminals trying to flee to American soil.  Most of us don’t know these people personally.  They are from a different culture and speak a different language and, for some reason, there are those in this country who feel threatened by that.  Yet, in reality, the vast majority of these people are simply trying to find a better life and provide for their families – and who among us wouldn’t do the same? 

Three years ago, we read a story in the news that didn’t garner much national attention
but moved us deeply.  In 2004, a Mexican citizen named Lance Corporal Juan Lopez Rangel, who had enlisted in the U.S. Marines, was killed in a firefight outside Fallujah just west of Baghdad in Iraq.  His body was flown back to his hometown of San Luis de la Paz, Mexico to to be buried in a military funeral.  At the funeral, a man from the U.S. Embassy turned up
to deliver U.S. citizenship papers to Juan’s widow.  These papers were granted immediately upon the occasion of Juan’s death.

The tragic irony of this story led us to do some research and shortly thereafter, we learned that aside from the United States, Great Britain, and Iraq itself, Mexico has suffered more casualties in the Iraq War than any other country.  Yet, Mexico has never been part of “the coalition of the willing.”  How could this be possible? In addition, as many Mexican men have been leaving their homeland to pursue“the American dream,” numerous towns and villages in Mexico are now inhabited solely by women and children.  This phenomenon is only worsening the economic situation there.  It was these pressing issues that helped plant
the seed of our short film, “Una Causa Noble” (A Noble Cause).

We have screened our film for people on both sides of the proverbial aisle who have conflicting perspectives on these subjects. The one response they share is that the film helps puts a “human” face on these issues.  Hopefully, viewers can empathize with our characters, and by extension, feel some compassion for all those desperate men, women and children who too often are compelled to make heartrending choices solely in order to survive.  - Miles Merritt/Gail Kempler