A touching film telling the story of the struggle in the creation of a union, Bread and Roses had me watery eyed at many scenes. Maya and her sister Rosa reflect two different ways to handle struggle. Maya, a headstrong girl , leads the fight for unionization. On the other hand, Rosa keeps her head down, shies away from trouble, and is happy with being able to put food on. Neither is better or worse, but what interests me is how age plays a role in their actions. Maya is the much younger, more naive, little sister while Rosa is married with two teenage kids. Their personality differences reminded me of how individuals generally become more conservative as they age. When I look upon our liberal campus bubble, I wonder how much of it is permanent. And what makes people change from being liberal to being conservative? Liberalism surely matches the freedom of youth, risk-taking and . The hard-hat riots, alluded to in the movie, were riots consisting of blue-collar construction workers beating youth student protesters as the workers saw the students as ungrateful. The idea of protesting is very much associated with youth and the response of those who are older has overall been seeing us as foolish. It will be interesting to see how our generation changes as we grow older to understand why and how this documented change occurs.

Bread and Roses has a realism that too many movies lack. The ending isn’t a happily ever after–Maya ends up with the troublemaking Sam instead of the sweet, hard-working Luis. But who knows, maybe she’ll change her mind when she’s older.