Educational Media Reviews Online

Tracing Aleida is the first person story of Aleida Gallangos, whose parents were radical leftists in 1960s Mexico, and victims of its ‘dirty wars.’ She and her brother were adopted by different parents when they were toddlers separated by their parents’ arrests in a violent raid in 1975. The film follows her search through adoption records for her brother and then her attempts to contact him in Washington D.C. where he lives with a family who has never told him he is adopted. Political repression in Mexico and reporting on their rebel parents provide an impressionistic background for the focus on the contemporary Aleida. Many phone calls are documented as she takes great pride in her search as ‘the greatest gift,’ – that is, to know the truth about the past. There is a miscue with a man who happens to have the same name as her brother, but eventually she is faced with her real brother and the job of convincing him over the telephone that they must meet. His parents are very sad at this turn of events, and the search for truth becomes a theme of guilt towards the end of the film. The film apparently covers several years and sometimes presents a confusing multiplicity of settings. However, all are brought together by the compelling presence of Aleida who is on screen or narrating throughout, articulating with passion each step in her search. Recommended for library collections with a focus on Mexico.