30 Days Immigration Episode- The Turning Point

Rigoberto is quiet through most of the episode but towards the end he challenges Frank to go to Mexico and see the plight of the people that they sought to escape. Frank takes this offer and goes to stay with Rigoberto’s brother for several days. He sees several houses and also visits where the family used to live. It is only one room and there are no modern amenities. There is a corner where they had a fire pit to cook and over the hill a watering hole. Frank is appalled by the conditions that the family lived in and begins to understand why their immigration had been so pressing.

At the conclusion of the episode Frank emerges with a new point of view. “What I’ve learned most here is to see and understand your perspective straight from you,” he tells the family. He also states, “There comes a time when you love people for who they are, all politics aside.” The show cleverly allows Frank to arrive at this point on his own using circumstances that had a predictable outcome. Though, the show does have merit for showing that people often need to see the other perspective to understand and to help the intricacies of illegal immigration to emerge. So, while the outcome may be contrived and predictable, watching Frank on his journey to understanding and ultimately observing his change in thinking is a rewarding process in itself.

The show is very entertaining while presenting the message, but raises the question as to how much of the actual experience is being represented in the episode. 30 days worth of material has been compressed into about 50 minutes of show at most. Often the cuts seem to be almost systematic in carefully building the change of mind from Frank Minuteman to Frank the Concerned Citizen. While the transition is an important message to give it appears, in the case, to be carefully constructed.

Overall the show is a valuable learning tool. It shows how frame of mind can change based on the amount of knowledge and involvement of the person. While it is a very contrived situation, this setup is somewhat necessary for the situation to work. It would be far less effective if Frank himself had not gone through the immigration process and was unable to communicate to the family. Therefore, this show is worth a watch at least once. It gets 1.5 thumbs up out of 2.