Bread and Roses depicted the struggle that immigrants face, shedding light on how painfully unfair and difficult it can be for immigrants to make enough money just to eat or to be treated respectfully.

This movie made me wonder where the boundary lies for when the standards of morality begin to change when there seems to be no other choice? For example, the main character, Maya robbed a bank in order obtain money to pay for her friend’s college tuition. The friend had been working for five years attempting to collect his savings, until he lost his job due to coworkers trying to unionize. Should she have felt the guilt of robbing the bank at all given a system where fairness and justice didn’t seem to apply to her and her fellow janitors?

One of the most impactful scenes to me was when Maya confronted her sister Rosa for betraying her union efforts to the supervisor, and by doing so, becoming supervisor herself. Considering their bond, it seemed unconceivable and harsh that Rosa would not only do something like this, but feel no remorse. However, as the scene develops, the audience experiences the cruelty of the situation along with Maya. As Rosa reveals what she had to do in order to get the family where they were, including prostituting herself, Maya is tormented by the guilt, sadness, and loss of naivety she experiences. She experiences guilt and sadness the naivety to what Rosa had been through to get the family to where they were.

This movie was a reminder that desperate times call for sacrifices to be made, even if that dedication to improving what is wrong requires bending what one considers as right and wrong.