In Flora’s Friday Films, we watched the movie Bread and Roses, which follows an undocumented immigrant, named Maya, as she tries to aid her fellow janitorial workers in LA in getting better working conditions. Maya comes to the United States, and lives with her sister Rosa and her family. Rosa gets Maya a job (at a price) with her as a janitor. It quickly becomes apparent that these janitors work in subpar conditions. In one particularly striking scene, we watch as a janitor, who is the breadwinner for her family in El Salvador, gets fired because her bus arrived late to work. Maya herself has to give her first month’s paycheck to her supervisor as payment for getting the job. As Maya gets to know her fellow janitors, and watches as her sister Rosa is unable to pay for proper medical care for her husband despite working overtime, she encourages her fellow workers to fight for unionization with the help of union organizer Sam Shapiro. Despite some setbacks and a personal rift that grows between Rosa and Maya, due to some hard decisions, the Janitors are successful and do earn union rights. The film presented us with a harsh reality of the lives of some undocumented immigrants and custodial workers. One of the janitors sets aside his paycheck to get a deposit on a scholarship. Rosa, in order to pay for her husbands treatment, must sell out her fellow workers to their supervisor in hopes of getting a better paying job. Maya herself is deported after robbing a convenience store to help one of her janitors get enough money for his scholarship deposit, after a majority of the janitors are fired for protesting at a high class party. This film gave me a perspective on the struggles of undocumented immigrants and the working class, and important it is to ensure that all have a proper standard of living.