Carlitos. Edgar.

You know the feeling. Jerk out of sleep, heart pounding like you've been running across the desert while your brain tries to orient itself. It wasn't real wait, yes it was, I felt it, they're here--where? Bed. Walls. Faint light. No, no, no not real. Just a dream.

It was probably not the best idea to read that story right before I fell asleep, the true story version of La Misma Luna that doesn't have a happy ending. Edgar Chocoy, only a little older than Carlitos, came to the United States in search of his mother who had left when he was 6 months old. He was Guatemalan, and was fleeing his old gang that swore to kill him because he abandoned them in search of a better life. He was arrested here, begged to stay but was sent back, even though his aunt in Virginia had offered to take him. Seventeen days after being deported, he was shot. (Greg Campell, Death By Deportation) Read the story.

Then I dreamed. I didn't like it. We were being chased and it was scary. I didn't know where my friends were. I woke up just as the people were catching us. Bed. Walls. Faint light. My brain tried to shake it off but I couldn't get rid of the memory that whoever was chasing me saw me as only an object. I didn't like it.

Turns out my dear old brain does some insightful pondering while I sleep because my waking self realized this is the root of The Problem:

Objectification.

"This isn't really the time to be having bad feelings, David. We're here."

"I just don't think it's worth it."

"Is it worth your tuition?"

(La Misma Luna, 2007, directed by Patricia Riggen)

This quote is evidence that the smugglers in the film view Carlitos simply as a means to pay tuition. But they're not the only ones who objectify him. Carlitos is viewed over and over again in La Misma Luna as nothing but an object that people can profit from. First by his aunt and uncle, then the smugglers, the drug addict guy, the creepy man who tried to buy him, even Enrique only saw him as a troublesome tag-along at first. Rosario is also viewed as an object by her employer who felt she was expendible and was nothing more than a young, pretty face.

When we view people as objects, it is easy for us to see them as a means to an end. Oh hello, Levinas! Didn't see you sneaking up there. We slap that label on and they become a rock in our path. It's a terrible pandemic, the virus that makes you lose your humanity. It's the reason that Edgar Chocoy was sent back, even though he would have done well here. He was an object that would clutter America, an "illegal."

No. He was a child of God, just like you and me.

How will we cure this pandemic?