#The American Dream For First-Born Immigrants Comes With Immense Pressure [Sundance 2022]

“Mija” filmmaker Isabel Castro smartly sought out Jacks just after Doris took a liking to her musical style and was able to spend time with the singer before she ever met her prospective manager. It helps paint a thorough portrait of what these two have in common, long before they bond through their career collaboration and ambitions. The documentary captures some of their most intimate and trying moments. 

For Jacks, there’s a tense, tearful phone call that reveals the rock and a hard place that she finds herself between as she hopes to make it in the music business. At the same time, her parents in Dallas lecture and resent her for not taking advantage of the freedom they risked their lives in order to take a more practical path to employment an help them get identification cards that would allow them to have more lucrative jobs. There’s a stark juxtaposition between Jacks’ effortlessly cool and sexy onstage persona and the personal side of her life, reminding us that we never truly know what anyone is dealing with on the inside, despite looking incredibly put-together on the outside.

Meanwhile, Doris shows her own vulnerability and uncertainty about her future in the wake of Cuco no longer being part of her client roster. As voiceover acts as an ongoing diary that feels almost like an inner monologue, we see how dedicated she is to getting her family back together, just as they are in adorable home videos of her youngest birthday parties. Doris becomes a safe place and a source of encouragement for Jacks in the face of her own worries because she’s had to deal with the same obstacles that Jacks is just now confronting. But the most emotional cornerstone for Doris comes towards the end of the film by way of a pivotal Zoom call with her parents that will bring you to tears. Whether they’re tears of joy or sadness, we’ll let you find out for yourself.

Though “Mija” finds a powerful emotional core between these two young women, it feels somewhat incomplete. In some ways, there’s a resolution for Doris and her family, but in others, her story is still ongoing, left open-ended by the uncertain path that her new client could take her on. Because of that, Jacks has an even more truncated arc in the documentary, and her success and future (as well as her relationship with her parents) are still very much in the air. But perhaps that’s the best presentation for their stories. After all, this is a journey that won’t be over for either of them anytime soon.

 “Mija” tells the story of many first-generation children out there right now trying to make it. As much as the film is about Doris and Jacks, it’s also about the growing struggles of the American children of undocumented immigrants in these politically heightened times. Can they ever truly live the American Dream, or will they be held back by the immigration system that always seems to move the finish line? “Mija” doesn’t necessarily have an answer, but it just might contain the inspiration someone out there needs to keep forging ahead in a world that perpetually tries to keep them down.

/Film Rating: 8 out of 10