Cartel Land Documentary Questions

1.      The specific scene that got to me was during the documentary, Cartel Land, was during the Autodefensa campaign through Mexico’s Michoacán. The Autodefensa was a vigilante group of citizens across all cities uniting to fight against the cartels terrorizing cities. In their campaigns through the cities to tell all the locals what they were doing, one of the towns cities got very upset with the leaders of Autodefensa during the campaign. The citizens were interrupting the speech and yelling about how nobody asked for the Autodefensa’s help and they were not needed. Not only this but the citizens were accusing the Autodefensa group of raiding houses, aiming guns all over recklessly, and other harsh accusations. This upset me because the citizens are arguing with a group of people who are there to help them fight against the cartel. This is ridiculous because the vigilante group of citizens, Autodefensa, are united by heartbreak of family members getting killed or other awful things done by the cartel to them. Also, they are going into cities with people who they do not know and helping them because they don’t want those some heart-breaking actions to happen to their family members, random people.

The reason this upset me is because the Autodefensa are only there to help. The houses that they were raiding belong to the cartels. Not only this but the Autodefensa were accused of using their guns recklessly and aiming everywhere. This is the only criticism that is somewhat of a fair thing to say because a stray bullet could hurt a citizen. However, the citizens should be glad that the Autodefensa are there to help fight off cartels and not upset. The Autodefensa are helping voluntarily and most are men with families. Being angry with these men is completely absurd because they are putting their lives on the line to protect citizens they do not know.

2.      The thing that most surprised me was how the two main groups  of vigilantes in the documentary were. The Autodefensa in Mexico fighting off the cartel and vigilante border defenders in Arizona. Both grouped up with others that had similar views to each other. Both groups were very determined to what cause they were fighting against and went to great extents to do their vigilante "job". Another similar thing is that both groups had strong opposition from citizens, calling the Autodefensa dangerous and calling the Arizona border team racist.

However, there were also many differences between the two groups that surprised me as well. For one, the Autodefensa went town to town recruiting people in person, meanwhile the Arizona border team began to recruit people online. I felt like the Autodefensa strategy was more effective because they could talk face to face with the people to recruit meanwhile the border team had to leave limited information up online that could be interpreted different than intended.

3.      A question I have after watching Cartel Land would be, why didn’t more people agree with the main leader of the Autodefensa, Dr. Mireles, that he wouldn’t join with the government instead of being a vigilante group? He was the original founder of the group and had a natural talent to lead, yet practically nobody joined with him in his rebel against the government when the government wanted the Autodefensa so disarm and join the government as a federal group. He thought the government was corrupt and wanted to keep the cartels safe. Dr. Mireles was arrested and held in solitary confinement for standing up for his beliefs against the government. 

Some problematic concepts I saw in the film included how the camera crew was available to get an interview with the drug makers for the cartels. I find that strange that the cooks weren’t bothered by being filmed, although they had masks. Also, they are willing to risk their location of their lab just for being in the film. It is understandable that they have no choice to make drugs and want to get their word out but why jeopardize being exposed and possibly arrested? Another problematic concept I had was that the documentary did not tell much about the cartels and if their activity was lowered since the Autodefensa joining the government. Not only this but if I was wondering if any of the any cities that were taken back from the cartels by the Autodefensa had problems with the cartels again. That was only mentioned briefly and not too much in detail. One more problematic concept was that the border team in Arizona did not have much story about them after they got the new recruits. Other than 1 mission where they found people trying to cross the border, there was not much story on them. I am curious if American citizens still hated them and called them racists. Last problematic concept I had was if anybody was outraged that Dr. Mireles was jailed. After all he was the original leader of the Autodefensa.