Take Out: A Story of Stir-Fried Servitude

If Lou Dobbs could wave a magic wand and make all those pesky undocumented workers disappear, he'd do it in a heartbeat. And while that might be a triumph for law and order, it would also be kind of a hollow victory--pretty soon our empty stomachs would begin rumbling, and we'd be grumbling:

Who's going to pick our produce?

Who's going to pluck our poultry?

Who's going to chop up and stir-fry our chicken and broccoli?

Who's going to deliver it to our door?

Millions of illegal immigrants make enormous sacrifices--leaving behind loved ones and paying smugglers a fortune--to come to the U.S. and work long hours for low pay doing lousy jobs. You probably don't give that a whole lot of thought when you dial the Chinese restaurant down the block to order your won ton soup and lo mein.

Filmmakers Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou are out to change that with Take Out, a day-in-the-life saga about one of those guys you grab your bag of food from and hand a dollar to before you shut the door and forget his face. The film opens Friday at the Quad Cinema in New York City, where Take Out takes place, and illuminates the lives of an ignored but integral segment of our population.

Take Out stars Charles Jang as Ming Ding, an illegal Chinese deliveryman who pedals his way through a drizzly day made more dismal still by ruthless loan sharks. Ming's morning starts with a bruising wake-up call from his debtors, who barge in to the cramped apartment he shares with umpteen other immigrants and demand that he come up with $800 in interest on the massive debt he owes his smugglers by the end of the day.

Ming borrows much of the money from friends but has to double his usual take in tips to make the difference. His scramble to cram as many deliveries as he can into his day takes him--and us--from the hallways of housing projects to opulent lobbies and every class of New York City dwelling in between. His customers run the gamut, too, from kind to curt to cruel, or just surly and obnoxious. Not content to provide a sampler of New York stereotypes, Take Out gives us flashes of humanity behind those front doors--and inhumanity, too.

The repetitiveness of Ming's day, the seemingly endless series of hallways and elevators and apartment doors and customers thrusting dollars, makes for a movie that's monotonous in a mesmerizing kind of way. The filmmakers opted for a neo-realist approach that made a virtue out of their bare bones ($3,000) budget, forcing them to film the movie in a real Chinese restaurant while it remained open for business. The end result blurs the line between documentary and drama, but yields a sharply drawn portrait of a life most of us couldn't imagine and would prefer not to think about.

The film is perfectly cast and its cinema verité approach makes its message all the more compelling. While the Broken Borders brigade is fixated on erecting barriers, Take Out asks us to step outside of our individual fortresses, just for an hour and a half, and see the view from the other side of our front doors. It's a powerful ploy; as Nathan Lee writes in his review of Take Out in Friday's New York Times, "I'll tip more, I promise!"

Comments

[NABNYC]

When there is a shortage of labor, or a low level of unemployment, then wages, benefits, and working conditions tend to rise. Employers must compete for workers, and workers have options available to go to some other company that may have better hours, or a better medical or retirement plan.

The opposite is also true. When there is a glut of labor, wages, benefits and working conditions go down. Sometimes dramatically. Such as the building trades in which American carpenters made $25/hour in 1980 and were replaced by illegal immigrants ($8/hour) by the year 2000. Despite the cries of Agri-Business that food will rot in the fields, the fact is that the wages for ag workers -- pickers -- have been frozen for a decade because there are too many people available in the U.S. to do the work.

All illegal immigrants should be deported. There should be some equitable relief for long-term residents with families, but everyone else should leave. Then our national immigration policy should only allow in the number of immigrants per year which will blend into our economy, not throw Americans out of work, and not depress our wages.

[Dangersea27]

Thank you, NAFTA, for allowing Big Business to employ cheap labor in other countries, so we here in the U.S. can buy really cheap goods. Problem is, now that the jobs are exported, people don't have the paychecks so they can't even buy the really cheap goods anymore. Kind of shot ourselves in the foot with that one.

[dadw5boys]

Now many of the tools you need are made so cheap they seldom last for more than 1 or 2 jobs then you have to replace them. That is why they have constant sales on hand tools.

[trinity]

Yes it's unfortunate that many people have been forced into literally indentured servitude in order to build a better life for themselves. It's also terrible that so many businesses exploit these people in an effort to make an easy buck.

But be careful with the "they take jobs that Americans don't want" comments. For every open fruit picker/housekeeper/landscaper job, there is a union roofer/carpenter/painter/drywaller sitting at home because the contractor decided to make more money hiring a bunch of illegal day laborers. No I don't blame the day laborers for wanting to work, but they are taking away a job from an American...let's not kid ourselves. One only has to waltz through a development of houses going up. Also I recall, meat packers used to be a union job as well. Why are there so many illegals working in the packing plants now? So there were Americans willing to pluck chickens at Tyson at one time, I kind of doubt they woke up one day and decided to let Tyson/Armour etc. hire undocumented workers to take their place.

NAFTA is at fault for so much of it, especially the downfall of the Mexican farmer and economy in general. I think it was American businesses desire for super cheap labor that fueled it more than anything else.

[GQTaste]

You guys are amazing. Not anywhere else in the world could people just come in unlawfully and you guys by ok w/ it. Why don't you try doing it in Mexico yourself? Or Paris, France? Or China? Well you wouldn't be able to, why? Because it's against their laws.

We have a hard enough time right now attempting to take care of our citizens and you guys want to feel so sorry for a different country than ours. I"m sure this wont' be shown on here anyway but I really wish you counld read this and others.

[corwin]

After demonstrating my humor,i'd like to make a comment also.
Isaac Asimov once complained(in good humor,I'm sure ) to losing an award to Harlan ellison's ,"I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,"on the grounds It as all emotion and no thought.I'm sure(well,maybe not) you see where this is leading.No thought in this piece.And I say that as someone whose standard put down of things like this is,"Some of my best friends were Liberal
Arts majors."

[corwin]

And after all,even in Egypt,the Phaoahs,
Had to import,Hebrew braceros.
From Tom Lehrer..

[Badbone]

"Who's going to pick our produce?"

Strange. Somehow, this country managed to pick its own produce and clean its own buildings and deliver its own food and all sort of other things, prior to the massive influx of illegal immigration.

[GoodGuysandBadGuys]

that was also prior to the "something for nothing" mantra that has become the american way of life.

if we were willing to pay the true cost of things, instead of wanting everything at rock bottom prices, then we would be supporting our fellow americans to do these jobs.

[thefirehorse]

What is the solution? Open the borders? Are we going to open them to the world or just the poor who come from south of our border? Oh I forgot, we're going to open it to them. I'm very sure that I can find any number of family's from Dafur who will be more than happy to take their place. Oh by the way, I know quite a few people who are now taking those jobs, because they have to work. There aren't any other jobs out there. Have you checked out the economy lately? I don't blame the people for this problem, I blame Mexico. Let them stay and make Mexico pay. They have OIL. Have them open their oil fields to the US and we take care of their poor. How about that?

[clr2]

We spend BILLIONS to provide health care and an education for ILLEGAL ALIENS. We need to use that money on our own poor. All ILLEGAL ALIENS no matter where they are from should be deported. Those who hire ILLEGALS should be heavily fined and jailed.

[clr2]

We pay BILLIONS of dollars to provide health care and a education for ILLEGAL ALIENS. All ILLEGAL ALIENS no matter where they come from should be deported and those who hire ILLEGALS should be heavily fined and jailed. There are legal ways for these people to come to America - they should try it.

[darthdarcy]

"When you reach the broken promise land, and every dream slips through your hand, you'll know you only left the past behind, and you'll see you've come so far, just to wind up where you are, and you're only just a cross the border line..!"

Borderline Ry Cooder, Jim Dickerson..

[oafishcad]

Enough already. Illegal immigrants come to America to make their OWN lives better. They don't come here to make America better. Who will do all those "jobs no American will take"? to quote George Bush. Americans will if they get paid decent wages and have benefits. To support the continuing flow of criminal trespassers into the USA condemns America to having a permanent lower caste of low wage laborers and condemns their nations of origin to never solving their own problems. Yes, most of these people are decent caring humans deserving respect all humans deserve. Supporting their criminal behavior by pulling on our emotions is despicable. Before you go pooh poohing me, I personally have picked grapes to live, along side other native born Americans. Fix Mexico, fix China, fix Haiti, stop driving down the standard of living of America (except of course those among our own upper classes who only benefit from cheap labor). I don't condone the criminal behavior of George Bush, I don't condone the criminal behavior of the criminal trespassers. To call them "undocumented workers" is like calling someone who climbs in my window an "uninvited houseguest".

[kjacobsmeyer]

You were coherent until the last sentence, which is a fallacy. Undocumented workers are people who are exploited despite lacking citizenship papers or a green card. They do provide labor. A burglar just takes without giving. Nice way to show your true colors, but then, your login name really says it all. Claiming that you picked grapes personally doesn't necessarily give you the clout to win others over. There is an obvious lack of compassion, so I highly doubt the verity of your claim.

[realityczech4u]

There is a greater difference between a legal and an illegal immigrant than just that the latter 'doesn't have his paperwork in order'. The former has played by the rules and shown respect for the laws of his his country. The latter has made the determination that it is he who will decide whether or nor he is admissable or not and the laws of his host country be damned. The gubmint, as much as it can get away with it, looks the other way and just pays lip service to border control. It is about providing a supply of cheap labor and nothing more. it is not altruism. NAFTA is a program whereby the corporadoes are permitted to go where the cheap labor originates rather then bringing it here. It provides the added 'benefits' of lax enviro regulations and worker safety protections.

[Liberal2]

"...You were coherent until the last sentence..." *YOU* didn't even get that far.

Every illegal steals from the Americans who have to compete with an illegal for the dwindling jobs in the US. They also steal from Americans because when they live here we have to import energy to feed, clothe, and house them. Oil is now reaching $150/barrel. You think a Mexican illegal comes here with the skills to cover the cost of his/her energy cost?

Believe me, I welcome every illegal who competes for *YOUR* job and I hope they get it.

[thefirehorse]

If they all left today and we had to do without the benefits of their labor, what would we do?

We'd get to work and put our poor labor force back to work. Remember we have a lot of poor Americans that don't even have the chance to compete for these jobs. By the way, I'm not just talking about the fruit seller on the corner.

[RRonin]

Well so far we haven't done much to "fix Mexico". NAFTA has empoverished Mexican farmers who used to be able to make a decent living. Now the rural areas are emptying out, people moving to the cities or "el Norte'. What say the Mexicans decide to fix Mexico on their own? And we end up with another Rafael Chavez just across the border? Is that a fix you can live with? Be careful what you wish for....

[realityczech4u]

It would be a humanitarian act for this film to be translated or subtitled into other languages and distributed free of charge by the State Department or ICE to those countries that are the source of most illegals. Upon seeing how tough they would actually have it here, they would stay home, a win-win situation.