The Real Melquiades

The Mexican film director, Guillermo Arriaga, who produced "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" titled the film after a real Melquiades Estrada.  I know it was an honor, but I would find it very uncomfortable for a movie to named after me when the main character was a dead man whose body was dragged across Mexico.

While Arriaga is very sympathetic to the family, I guess he isn't aware that the term "illegal" is offensive.  Either that or the NYT told him he had to use the word.

Either way.  Arriaga writes an op-ed in the New York Times about the Estrada family and all they have gone through because of immigration.  It's worth reading.

"My friends the illegal immigrants," New York Times, April 10, 2009