| BOOK CORNER October Movie of the Month
The Milagro Beanfield War
directed by Robert Redford, 1988
reviewed by Peter Redington
“I knew Jose couldn’t go through his entire life without attempting at least one great thing.”
So marvels Ruby Archuleta at the beginning of Robert Redford’s classic film, The Milagro Beanfield War. Adapted from the comedic novel by John Nichols, Beanfield War explores land development issues in the mountains of northern New Mexico, along with everything that has come to be associated with such a complex concern: civil rights, environmental justice, economic development, poverty, and of course, power.
Beanfield War is the story of the Milagro Valley and its Chicano inhabitants, who have lived sustainably off its land for 300 years, long before it was bought up by the United States in the Gadsden Purchase before the Civil War. But now it is the twenty-first century, and Anglo robber-baron Ladd Devine has decided that the valley would be the perfect place for golf courses, ski resorts, and condominiums. Having contributed some heavy finances to the campaign of the elected governor, Devine gets a law passed making it illegal for the impoverished citizens of Milagro to use the valley’s ancient water canal to irrigate their fields. One by one, with no other options, they begin selling off to Devine Land Development. Eventually, as development continues, the tax base will rise until all of Milagro will have to sell out, lose their land, and struggle to retain their way of life.
And so it is that we meet Jose Madragon, who one day, in a fit of frustration with the mounting odds of his circumstance, kicks the private sign at the canal’s edge, breaking the water free, and starts watering the family bean field he inherited from his ancestors.
It seems a small act, to be sure. But it will have big ramifications, possibly much larger and more important than Jose intended at that moment of clarity. By deciding to do what his people had done for a hundred generations, rather than “go north, and pick someone else’s beans for $2 an hour,” the village of Milagro had been transformed, its people rallied together. And Jose, somewhat unsuspectingly, found himself in a land war against some of the most powerful people in New Mexico. Indeed, as one villager notes, “Nobody would do anything if they knew what they were in for.”
Redford read The Milagro Beanfield War in the seventies, and liked the work of author Nichols a lot. “John was extremely radical, politically,” comments the actor/director, “so it was likely that whatever he did, it was going to lean in the direction of the working class.” Redford, a self-described environmentalist, notes that he was interested in doing a film about preserving the land against the “onslaught of development.” A familiar tale that, unfortunately, is rooted in a reality that has occurred far too many times, in far too many places.
These days, there seems to be a Devine Land Development in every valley, a corrupted politician in every county. What can one do, in the face of such historic political precedence? Nichols and Redford suggest we attempt “at least one great thing,” like Jose Madragon did. And this one thing, with the support of a unified people, could lead to several other important things: sense of community, cultural pride, and even economic empowerment.
View previous Class Action Book of the Month selections...
September Book of the Month: Tearing Down the Gates
August Book of The Month: Staff Picks
July Book of the Month: Theory of the Leisure Class
June Book of the Month: Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons
May Book of the Month: Death in the Haymarket
April Book of the Month: Food Politics
March Book of the Month: Psychology and Economic Injustice
February Book of the Month : What's My Name, Fool?
December Book of the Month:
Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming
November Book of the Month: Awol
October Book of the Month: Class Passing
September Book and Video of the Month: Beyond Silenced Voices and Declining By Degrees
August Books of the Month: Human Cargo and Gathering the Sun
July Book of the Month: The Overworked American by Juliet Schor
June Book of the Month: More Money Than God by Steven R. Leder
May Book of the Month: Global Class by Jeff Faux
April Books of the Month: Classified and Strapped
March Book of the Month: Welfare Brat, A Memoir by Mary Childers
February Book of the Month: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
January Book of the Month: Invisible Privilege: A Memoir about Race, Class, and Gender by Paula Rothenberg
View last year's Book of the Month selections...
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