Film Report On "American Me": A Therapeutic Perspective

Film Report on “American Me”: A Therapeutic Perspective

Taj Gunter: March 2008

“American Me” is a fictional film having a factual basis, starring and directed by Edward James Olmos. Released to the national theater circuit in 1992, “American Me” depicts the life of Rodolfo Cadena, a ranking Carnal (gang member) in the prison gang La Eme, also known as the Mexican Mafia. To therapeutically approach the salience and pervasiveness of gang membership, including its allure and reinforcers, would be a challenging task for any human service practitioner involving accuracy of assessment and effectiveness of treatment. However, endeavoring to find and implement such therapeutic methods and procedures for positive outcomes, while preserving Latino cultural identity and integrity, is precisely the purpose of this paper.

One of the parallel themes of “American Me” is that prisons are far more than warehouses for society's outcasts and baneful. They are, instead, recruiting stations and training camps for future generations of criminals and gang members. “American Me” reveals how a major portion of the crime syndicate came to be hosted from the “inside,” from within the many prison walls of the U.S. Department of Corrections (Baumgarten, 1992).

Knowing the destiny of Montoya Santana, the character played by Edward James Olmos, in growing up and into a revered and lifelong membership in the Mexican Mafia, including 18 years in Folsom Prison, the development of a comprehensive, although hypothetical, human service intervention plan is in order. This hypothetical, culturally appropriate, therapeutic intervention is to take place at the point young (16-year-old) Santana is first institutionalized in (juvie) the juvenile detention center. This “early” intervention should increase the probability of a successful therapeutic rapport and service plan, especially if the human service practitioner personifies or is knowledgeable of Santana’s ethnic and cultural traits within the context of his family and community.

By the age of 16, Santana’s worldview and identity is well established. He exhibits a strong internalization of his Chicano (a Latino subculture) heritage and has begun to experience and establish an awareness of what Peter Bohmer describes as “internalized colonialism:” the socially and economically structured practice of securing the labor of non-Whites for the least desirable, "dirty and servile" jobs that are unwanted by Whites (Bohmer, 1998). Forming his own gang seemed to be a “natural” alternative to becoming a “pawn” in the well-established system of internalized colonialism. His Latino gang became a sub-cultural “vent” for relieving much of young Santana’s social, economic, and personal hardships, as well as a means of developing self-respect through the illegal and coercive powers made possible by gang activity and gang unity.

The most effective counselor for young Santana would not necessarily have to be of the same ethnicity or from the same East Los Angeles “barrio” (Hispanic neighborhood), but one who is empathic, nonjudgmental, culturally attuned to the challenges facing male Chicano teens of Santana’s time and locale, and knows what therapeutic approach would most likely render the best outcomes. Santana’s counselor, if he/she does not share his specific ethnicity, should at least have a sufficient understanding of the formidable threats of poverty, feelings of powerlessness, victimization by racism, the prevalence of violence and drugs in the Hispanic community, and the volatility to high-risk behaviors brought forth by surging adolescent hormones. If the counselor’s expertise is not comprehensive enough to cover Santana’s entire scope of needs, the counselor should not hesitate to “refer out” his client to another service provider who specializes in that specific area of need. Common referral needs for Santana might include: substance abuse assessment and treatment, domestic violence education (adolescent/cultural component), ESL services, anger management, academic tutoring, and mental health services (re: psychiatric counseling and/or pharmopsychiatric treatment).

The culturally skilled counselor attempting a cross-cultural approach would be cognizant of his/her own tendencies toward personal bias and stereotyping of Santana’s appearance and attitude, as well as the very likely possibility of his client being on the receiving end of ridicule and criticism from others negatively stereotyping him as lazy, uneducated, or a “drug runner” just because he is Latino. Effective management and control of personal biases pave the way for open dialogue and the establishment of a clinical trust or professional bond that ideally leads to the discovery of core issues within the client that can subsequently be addressed.

The therapeutic objective would fall within the target area of working with Santana toward the establishment of both personally (need) gratifying and socially acceptable incentives that would reinforce behaviors and self-perceptions independent of the negative influences and effects of gang affiliation. Such an objective would highlight the preservation of redeeming qualities within Santana himself and his Latino