Elio & The Lonely Immigrant Kid
Or, I cried like a baby at a movie theater surrounded by actual babies
My brother and I have been going to a lot of movies together since he moved in. We walk across Central Park to the nicer AMC by Lincoln Center (the one on the UES notoriously has mice). This time, we went to see ELIO, the latest Disney/Pixar movie. I remember seeing a preview for it at another, but I’ve been on deadline so I haven’t paid attention to how it’s been received.
Spoiler alert: I loved it.
I’ve been thinking about what hit me the hardest and I’ve narrowed it down to the following things.
THE LONELY IMMIGRANT KID
Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is recently orphaned, and goes to live in an air force base with his Aunt Olga, voiced by Zoe Saldaña. He’s withdrawn and feels understandably lonely. Aunt Olga doesn’t know how to balance her career aspirations with suddenly also being a parent. This is classic middle grade coming of age growing pains. I loved how they hit these notes with moments like Olga being asked about a space program she was really excited about, but now can’t do. Elio, like all precocious kids, is aware of this and blames it on himself.
As the movie progressed—Elio becomes an alien aficionado who desperate wants to be abducted by extraterrestrials, confronts bullies, and gets in trouble—I couldn’t help but make parallels to my own childhood as a lonely immigrant kid. Even now I’m tearing up writing this. (Jesus, Zoraida, go to therapy.)
Elio is coded as Latino. There are subtle hints in the imagery, though it’s never said out loud. He’s not a recent immigrant like I was when I arrived in Queens, New York in 1992 (ish). But this captured the loneliness of not having your parents there with you. Elio’s parents (off screen) passed away. I am lucky enough that this wasn’t my reality, but my mother wasn’t there. It’s not her fault. She was going to school at night and working during the day, and then had a second job at a catering company later at night. I was also co-parents and raised by my aunts and uncles.
But there is a very particular loneliness that comes with being a child immigrant. You don’t have a tether. This isn’t your home, not yet. Elio’s home is not the Air Force base, not yet.
I was bullied by all kinds of kids for speaking in Spanish *in* our Spanish language class. Elio is bullied (well, because he makes up a fake club to steal a radio but misunderstandings happen).
Elio has created his own language which only his parents knew. “Elioese” is his own way of communicating. He’s silent for most of the time with his aunt, and she hasn’t learned his language yet. When you’re coming from another country that speaks a different language, and you’re immersed in the public school systems, you often feel misunderstood. I remember the year my thoughts were no longer in Spanish. (I was 10.) But until I got there, my English was still evolving. At home, my Spanish was garbled, a kitchen sink of different accents from the Puerto Rican and Dominican kids also in my class, not to mention my teachers.
For those in-between years, I didn’t feel understood. No one spoke my language, or the language I was learning. I was quiet. Instead of looking to the sky, I looked to fantasy novels, wishing, hoping, praying that one of them would open and take me far away to another land with magical creatures. Here, in this inner world, I could finally be understood. And wanted.
Immigrant kids are quiet and lonely, mostly because everyone is at work. If not for the neighbor or aunt or cousin who can look after you, then who did you have but your imagination?
Elio goes on to have an amazing adventure full of heart, friendship, and bravery. I felt overjoyed. Every frame was beautiful. I wish I could thank Adrian Molina for the work he’s done at Pixar, including this story.
Go watch Elio! We went to a 3PM showing on a Sunday, which was packed with families and the kids reacting to certain scenes was a delight.
💜💜💜