Blogpost 1: Space ... Place ... Home

Home. The word evokes a clear sense of place that nestles within a space. Home and place take on their meanings by the stories that create them. Buell, Ryden, and Johnson discuss theoretical structures by which the stories that infuse space give it meaning, therefore becoming place. The film Salt of the Earth presents the viewer and hearer with application of theory.

Indeed, Salt is about power, unionism, communism, racialization, and gender relations, yet it is also about origin and the critical importance of a place that is home.

The film centers around the fictional couple Ramon and Esperanza Quintero, who are representative of many underground miners and their families who lead almost unbearably hard lives in order to live and provide for their families. At the beginning of the film, Esperanza states, "I am Esperanza Quintero. I am a miner's wife. This is our home. This is not our house. But the flowers . . . the flowers are ours." Continuing, she says, "Our roots go deep in this place, deeper than the pines, deeper than the mine shaft." She explains to the audience that her family had raised cattle in that area and her husband's grandfather had owned the land where the mine stood. The space had been place to the people for hundreds of years, from long before Anglos had entered the space.

By exercising means of coloniality, that land had been taken from the people by those who had power and money and were Anglo. The miners, especially those who were of Mexican origin, became little more than serfs, viewed by mine bosses as powerless, somewhat less than human, and, therefore expendable.

A worker's injury in the mine due to unsafe conditions while dynamiting was the catalyst for the strike that did much to convince the miners and their families that they could have power, personally and collectively.

The final act of defiance occurred in the taking back of the Quintero home from evicting forces. As the family's belongings, through which the family members' stories are portrayed, are removed through the front door by the deputies, fellow miners' families pick them up and return them to the home through the back door as a force of solidarity.

Esperanza indicated that she wanted "home" for her children who are the "salt of the earth," invoking biblically Matthew 5:13 (Melendez). The understood "home" extended beyond a dwelling, possessions, or a piece of ground, but could be carried within the self as a sense of personhood with power and dignity. The saying goes "Home is where your story begins." As such, "home" could be extended to a space that becomes place through stories that infuse meaning.

An attempt to recreate this film is in the works. It remains to be seen if it will be made, and what success it would have (Baker).

It seems to be a move of genius for the director of Salt of the Earth to have cast many of the actual miners and their families in the film. Unlike the professional actors who came to the area, the locals engendered that sense of place, home, and the realization of personal and collective power and self-determination that placed the poignancy and reality squarely in front of the viewer and demanded that the viewer notice and respond.

For further information in addition to class texts:

Baker, Ellen R. (2007). On Strike and On Film: Mexican American Families and Blacklisted
Filmmakers in Cold War America. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press.

Johnson, Brandon. (11 Sep. 2010). Address to the Utah History Conference. Salt Lake City,
Utah.

Melendez, Gabriel. (2007). "Who Are the 'Salt of the Earth'?: Competing Images of Mexican
Americans in Salt of the Earth and And Now Miguel." Expressing New Mexico:
Nuevomexicano Creativity, Ritual, and Memory. Phillip B. Gonzales, Ed. Tucson, AZ:
U of AZ Press.

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