Overjoyed Homegirl

The first time I watched Mosquita y Mari (2012), I felt overjoyed by Aurora Guerrero's success. I first met her in the nineties, when she was a student in an undergraduate course in Chicano studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where I worked as the teaching assistant. Aurora was a vibrant, intelligent, and inquisitive undergraduate student. I was a lost graduate student trying to navigate the maze of graduate courses and requirements. It was refreshing to be around someone so confident and outspoken. Over twenty years later, I have now taught Mosquita y Mari for over six years to undergraduate students at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) who appreciate the many ways the film resonates with their lived experiences. Because the students at UCR are predominantly Latinx, first-generation undergraduate students from working-class and immigrant households in segregated communities in Southern California, Mosquita y Mari is often the...