This was an interesting weekly film, and I’m really glad I got to see it. I’ve always known that the history of Latino/Chicano people in the United States was vast and rich, but it can be hard to learn about it in academic contexts because the history isn’t documented in the same way it is for many Americans. My experience with Chicano history has always been verbal storytelling from my family, or murals in my neighborhood, neither of which tend to overlap with the content I learned in high school for U.S. history. It can be frustrating to hear these magnificent stories, and then never hear them acknowledged or repeated throughout decades of schooling.

Bad Hombres was a movie that took care to collect some of these stories and repeat them, particularly regarding the historic fight to decolonize justice in the United States. One story I appreciated from the movie was of a young woman, whose neighborhood had been flagged growing up for gang activity. This is something that happens to lots of neighborhoods in the US, particularly with BIPOC inhabitants, and it can be invisible to those who don’t live there. It’s a process in which greater police surveillance is employed in the interest of deterring crime. Oftentimes, the end result of this is greater punishment for what would be minor violations. The woman interviewed in the film did a great job of explaining what that’s like, and how justice can take different forms depending on your background.