A Day Without a Mexican Plot

A Day Without a Mexican (Spanish: Un Día sin mexicanos) is a controversial film, directed by Sergio Arau, in which all the Latinos (see Terminology section below) in the U.S. state of California suddenly disappear. The film takes a satirical look at the range of effects on the (non-Latino, mostly White) Californians who remain.

A Day Without a Mexican is the distributor's first theatrical release and opened May 14, 2004 in limited release throughout Southern California and opened on September 17 in theaters in Chicago, Texas, Florida and New York City.

The film's tagline is "There will be no Mexicans in California."

The film has a series of facts and statements which are written in white text on the screen throughtout the film. These facts and statements, in order of appearance, include:

Guatemalans and Hondurans are not Mexicans

There are 40 countries south of the border

20% of California K-12 teachers are Hispanic

8 of the L.A. Dodgers are Latino

Senator Shaw is a "closet Latino"

Every Hispanic on the West Coast is presumed to be Mexican

Agriculture is California's #1 industry... not Hollywood

This is true. See: California Section 5: Economy.

60% of construction-workers in California are Hispanics

Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada used to be part of Mexico

The wall is 12 ft high recycled Gulf War landing plates

During one of the film's many montages, the following conversation is heard in Spanish, and depicted in English subtitles:

Ay Piolin, did you know the most popular name in Califas is Joe?

No way Telorino, the most popular name for babies being born in California is not Joe, or John, or Jack... its [sic] José. Yes sir, José!

According to the Social Security Administration, the top 5 male names in California in 2004 (source) were:

Daniel (4,095)

Anthony (3,739)

Andrew (3,425)

Jose (3,312)

Jacob (3,290)

One of the characters says that, "90% of the crops in the State were picked by Mexican, undocumented workers, crossing the border..." See illegal alien and migrant worker.

One of the characters says, "They were saying, 'Latinos take $3 billion in social services and don't pay any taxes.' Turns out it's a big lie. There was $100 billion, we figured out, was what the Latinos were contributing to the economy of the State of California..." Presumably the filmmakers meant illegal aliens and not Latinos, since most Latinos do pay taxes.

The main problems in the film have to do with terminology, the science of ethnicity, and the film's "pink fog".

In the United States, Hispanic generally refers to people whose background is from Spain, the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, or the original settlers of the traditionally Spanish- and Mexican-held Southwestern United States.

In the United States, Latino generally refers to people living in the United States who are of Latin American background.

The film's title implies that it will be a film about the disappearance of Mexicans, but it is actually about the disapearance of Latinos. In this sense, the filmmakers seem to be guilty of the error pointed out by the film's factoid that, "every Hispanic on the West coast is presumed to be Mexican".

The film seems to use the terms Latino, Hispanic, Mexican, and illegal alien interchangably. See also: Chicano and Mexican-American.

Similar to the film Left Behind, in which devout Christians disappear in the rapture, this film does not dwell on the mechanics of how Latinos disappear. The disappearance is coincidal with a "pink fog" which surrounds California. Nothing crosses the pink fog border, and it is said to be responsible for the lack of telephone and internet communications outside the State.