“A Better Life” has earned stellar reviews from critics and a Best Actor nomination for Bichir. But what do the people that he portrays onscreen think of it? This week, at a national conference of day laborers in Los Angeles, the film was screened before an audience of men much like Carlos Galindo: carpenters, roofers, gardeners and others who work as day laborers, most of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America, some with papers and some without. Offering his take on the film in this Q&A; is Hugo Villatoro, 59, a day laborer from Guatemala who has lived seven years in the United States. Like Carlos, he’s undocumented, although he doesn’t fear coming forward. Villatoro was one of several Southern California day laborers involved in a lawsuit challenging the city of Redondo Beach on an ordinance that would have prohibited them from soliciting work on the street; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor this week. – Multi-American 02.24.2012

Read more http://multiamerican.scpr.org/2012/02/the-real-a-better-life-a-day-laborers-take-on-the-oscar-nominated-film/

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