As a baby he was sent away. Now, as a teenager, he is getting to know his birth mother for the first time.
He is a boy coming of age. She is a controversial Puerto Rican patriot, a hero, and a political prisoner serving an unjust 55 year prison term.
A story of
A mother and son who lost each other and now, under the strangest of circumstances, struggle to meet each other again.
A story of
Adoption. Immigration. Incarceration. Political prisoners. Colonialism.
A story of
Puerto Rico. Mexico. The United States.
... and the heart of a boy where they all meet.
In this award winning PBS documentary, meet Ernesto - the boy with two names, two identifies, two families, and three nationalities.
Meet Ernesto - who, like the young Luke Skywalker, was sent away as a child, raised in secret in a remote desert place, living with an adopting family, in hiding from the Empire, with a hidden heroic parental lineage that even the boy does not know.
Meet Ernesto - who was told on his 10th birthday by his Mexican parents who he really was for the first time:
that he was adopted,
that he had another name,
that his birth father was a folk hero on the run
that his birth mother was in prison, both of them revolutionaries, both fighting to win independence for Puerto Rico, both struggling against the American Empire and its colonial rule,
and who, at long last, after many years, received from prison, from his birth mother, a smuggled out message, asking to see him ...
... and so begins his journey and this documentary: from Mexico to the US to San Francisco to the prison where his mother was incarcerated, and ultimately to that most precious destination of them all:
to freedom. See the documentary that helped convince President Bill Clinton to grant Executiv Clemency to his mother, and for Ernesto - the freedom to be himself - whoever that might be.
... a journey that ended up with him making this film and becoming a man.
for more info:
lunaproductions.com/the-double-life-of-ernesto-gomez-gomez/
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