'La Leyenda Negra' Will Set You Ablaze
There is nothing more to say but that this film has ignited a fire.
La Leyenda Negra is a film that tells the story of a young girl named Aletia from El Salvador who is angry at the world and has every right to be. The film touches on the subject of immigration and the rights that are stripped away from many here in the United States, solely because their parents wanted a better future for them. It follows her story as she nears the end of high school and has high hopes to go to a good college with a steady scholarship, but there is still so much she fears. Yet all the precautions in the world that would stem from that fear, could not have prepared for her to lose her scholarship because she does not qualify as a citizen of the US.
This story is told in black and white, and there is still no denying how magnifying its effects were. The flames that Aletia looks towards are somehow brighter in this way. The flames that Aletia looked towards somehow sparked something within me in this way.
At the end of the film, someone had asked why Aletia was so angry with the world. Why had she set ablaze the institution that failed her? The director, Patricia Vidal Delgado, answered “When you push them that far they’re not thinking clearly anymore. When they grow up and realize that they are excluded in society, what they experience is a gradual unraveling of self and that results in substance abuse, suicide, self-harm, and it’s terrible but I don’t think you can judge them until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.”
As a Latina I have grown to see just this happen, the kids living in our society are angry at the world and take it out in different ways. But it is not right to judge them first without looking at the systems that have pushed them to this point.
La Leyenda Negra tells the story of so many young Latinx/Hispanic people in our society as it is, and it does not end completely. Because as long as there are people still facing these issues to this day, the fire will need no kindling to keep aflame.
