The Comeback Dad

An undocumented, single father lives under constant threat of deportation in Rio Grande Valley, Texas. This video gives a glimpse into one family's struggle to stay together even while split by the border. Full Story »

Posted by Sandip Roy

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Review

Michael Bugeja
4.2
by Michael Bugeja - Oct. 15, 2008

A few hours ago as the Stock Market crashed again, and men and women in Wall Street attire held their heads in despair, wondering if the economy "had bottomed out," I sent an email to my colleague--a professor who has dealt all week with a student melodrama about a grade--asking him if the world seemed topsy-turvy. He said the world had turned "goofy," and he was right. Upon seeing this moving video about a single Mexican father, being deported and returning again to his children, I must confess we are living in ridiculous times without realizing what the true state of the world is, even in our own borders in Iowa, where I have written about immigration for The Des Moines Register. What is it that makes us believe that a wall or a border will keep loving parents away from children who trust and rely on them? We had the same real-life drama played out in Iowa when packing plants were raided and parents arrested--hundreds facing deportation 1550 miles away from the border rather than a few, as in this video--with children in despair at what would happen to them. Our comeback dads in the Midwest have a longer path from Mexico to Marshalltown, the title of a photo documentary by our Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Dennis Chamberlin. So yes, watch the video. See the work ethic of the Aranzas, the familial commitment, the selling in a junkfood strip of south Texas of candied apples --a symbol rich in meaning, as in artificial fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil--and decide who is the snake and what is betrayed and whether you prefer a world with a "Comeback Dad" or a Wall Street with a "Comeback Economy."

Immigration is not confined to Texas; in fact, as this video shows, it cannot be confined with a wall or border because the bonds between people are stronger than the ones between nations.

This is a video so I cannot quote; but the text at the end of the documentary notes that the Comeback Dad, after achieving the American dream of a house, was deported for failure to pay parking tickets (no doubt received while his family sold candied apples).

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Michael's Rating

Overall
4.2

Good
from 22 answers
Quality
4.2
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4.0
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4.0
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5.0
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4.0
Style
4.0
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4.0
Balance
4.0
Context
5.0
Depth
4.0
Enterprise
5.0
Expertise
2.0
Originality
4.0
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5.0
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4.0
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5.0
Popularity
4.5
Recommendation
5.0
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4.0
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