Alex Rivera provides a poignant commentary on labor, ecology, racial capitalism, and imperial infrastructure in his futuristic, science fiction film Sleep Dealer. The film is set in a dystopian future of North America where Mexican water rights are in the control of multinational corporations and the border between the United States and Mexico is completely walled off. The film follows Memo Cruz, a young man who travels to Tijuana for work after his father is killed and his family’s farm is destroyed in an American corporation’s targeted drone strike. In what is dubbed “the city of the future,” Memo navigates displacement, dangerous virtual labor factories, and futuristic and personally invasive technology in order to find justice for his family and establish his own individual identity amongst this dystopian landscape. 

– MM

 

Further reading / viewing

Viramontes, Helena Maria. Under the Feet of Jesus. 1996.

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza. 1987.

Hernández, Ester.Sun Mad (ofrenda dedicated to the artist’s father, a farm worker from the San Joaquin Valley, CA), 1989. https://nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org/artworks/sun-mad-ofrenda-dedicated-to-the-artists-father-a-farm-worker-from-the-san-joaquin-valley-ca

Romero, Fernando. Hyperborder: The Contemporary U.S.–Mexico Border and Its Future. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.